HAY  WARD 

AUGUSTUS 

HARVEY 


o 


MEMOIR  OF 
HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS  HARVEY 


MEMOIR  OF  HAYWARD 
AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

BY 

HIS   SONS 

Faittt  it  que  rttonnenr  txigi 

\\'ITH  PORTRAITS  AMD  ILLUSTRATIONS 

NEW    YOR  K 
M  D  C  C  CC 

«   • 

./:    \-       .;*.:. 

, 

•».••'•"•  |..  •/  •...•:•.*.:•:  ;/\ 

COPYRIGHT,  190x5,  BY 
THOMAS  W.    HARVEY 


IN  writing  this  memoir  of  our  father  we 
have  received  valued  assistance  from  many  of 
his  personal  and  business  friends,  and  to  them 
we  wish  to  express  our  sense  of  gratitude. 
Particularly  are  we  indebted  to  Mr.  Frederic 
H.  Betts,  Counsel ;  Mr.  Edwin  Marshall  Fox, 
European  Agent ;  Mr.  Joseph  H.  Dickinson, 
Superintendent ;  and  the  late  William  Allen 
Smith,  Secretary  of  the  Harvey  Steel  Com- 
pany ;  also  to  Mr.  Cornelius  Winant  and  to 
Mr.  James  C.  Bayles. 

We  also  wish  to  express  our  appreciation  of 
the  loyalty  to  the  memory  and  fame  of  our 
father,  shown  by  all  of  those  who  have  been 
connected  with  the  steel  company  in  any  ca- 
pacity. 


M199S38 


LIST   OF   PORTRAITS   AND 
ILLUSTRATIONS 

Hayward  A.    Harvey        ....  Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


General  Thomas  William  Harvey  .  .  .  .12 
Mrs.  Melinda  Hayward  Harvey  .  .  .  .16 
Hayward  A.  Harvey  at  about  Twenty  Years  of  Age  26 
Hayward  A.  Harvey  at  Thirty-five  Years  of  Age  .  32 
Hayward  A.  Harvey  at  Forty-six  Years  of  Age  .  .  39 

Harvey  Steel  Company's  Works  at  Brill's  Station,  New- 
ark, N.  J.  .          .  .          .54 

Interior    of   Harvey    Steel    Company's    Works,    showing 

Harvey   Furnaces        .  .  .  .  .  56 

The  Second  Harvey   Plate  .  .      64 

Harvey   Armor  Plate,   Tested  near  Bethlehem,  Pa.,  July 

30,    1892         .  .     66 

First  English  Plate,  Tested  November  i,  1892  .  .  74 
The  Battle-ship  Maine 83 


MEMOIR   OF 
HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS    HARVEY 

THIS  loving  tribute  to  the  memory  of  Hay- 
ward  Augustus  Harvey  does  not  claim  to  rank 
as  a  biography,  and  can  but  sketch  in  outline 
the  varied  and  useful  activities  which  made  up 
his  life-work.  A  history  of  his  life  would  be, 
in  some  sense,  the  history  of  a  generation  of 
progress  in  the  mechanic  arts.  His  versatile 
genius,  though  mainly  directed  to  certain  defi- 
nite ends,  in  the  pursuit  of  which  he  admittedly 
led  the  world's  development,  found  profitable 
fields  of  activity  in  so  many  directions  that  one 
who  would  seek  to  follow  his  footsteps  would 
be  bewildered  by  their  many  deviations  from 
what  seemed  to  be  the  path  of  his  greatest  use- 
fulness. All  that  is  attempted  in  this  mono- 
graph is  to  present  a  few  memorable  facts  of  his 
life-work  in  approximate  chronological  order, 
in  the  assurance  that  they  will  be  of  interest  to 


^HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 


his  many  friends,  and  perhaps  useful  to  the  fut- 
ure historian  of  the  wonderful  progress  in  the 
arts  and  sciences  which  has  made  the  last  quar- 
ter of  the  nineteenth  century  memorable,  what- 
ever the  future  may  have  in  store  for  coming 
generations  of  men. 

However  incompletely  or  imperfectly  told, 
the  story  of  the  life  of  one  whose  genius  has 
revolutionized  more  than  one  industry  will  be 
read  with  interest.  To  those  nearest  to  him 
by  the  sacred  ties  of  kindred,  his  lovable  per- 
sonality, and  the  charm  of  his  exalted  char- 
acter as  husband,  father,  and  friend,  obscure 
and  render  impossible  of  just  and  critical  es- 
timate his  genius  as  a  mechanic  and  his  influ- 
ence in  the  industrial  development  of  his  time. 
We  loved  him  too  well,  and  were  too  close  to 
him  to  realize  how  great  a  man  he  was  in  his 
work. 

Hay  ward  A.  Harvey  was  a  striking  example 
of  the  heredity  of  genius.  His  father,  General 
Thomas  W.  Harvey,  was  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  He  was  a  pioneer  in  mechanical  inven- 
tion and  in  the  application  of  original  devices 


INTRODUCTION 

in  automatic  machinery.  One  who  attempts  to 
follow  his  work  soon  discovers  that  the  father 
was  embarrassed  by  the  number  and  wide  va- 
riety of  the  matters  claiming  his  attention. 
For  the  son  fewer  "  original  vacancies  "  in  the 
mechanic  arts  existed.  He  was  able  to  focal- 
ize his  work  with  somewhat  sharper  definition, 
though  not  as  completely  as  the  specialist  of 
the  present  day  is  able  to  do. 

His  training  in  the  specialties,  to  which  he 
had  devoted  himself  throughout  his  life,  had 
been  from  the  beginning  eminently  practical. 

He  had  little  use  for  theoretical  reasoning 
or  professional  formulae.  He  could  not  have 
been  called  scientifically  educated,  as  he  had 
not  had  access  to  the  science  of  the  schools 
until  his  later  years.  He,  like  his  father,  was 
a  pioneer  who,  with  keen  and  ready  axe,  blazed 
the  path  for  those  who  would  follow  ;  while 
in  their  specialties  both  gave  to  the  world,  as 
the  result  of  their  experiments,  many  com- 
pleted works,  in  other  and  neighboring  fields 
they  made  many  experiments,  which,  stopping 
short  of  practical  results  at  that  time,  were  dis- 
tinctly prophetic  ;  as  instances  we  may  cite 
the  use  of  electricity  as  a  motor  power,  the 

3 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

magnetic  separation  of  iron  ore,  and  the  pro- 
duction of  steel  direct  from  the  ore  by  one 
process,  all  of  which  both  father  and  son 
helped  to  make  practical  by  original  experi- 
mentation. 

Mr.  Harvey's  method  of  approaching  a  me- 
chanical problem  is  indicated  by  the  follow- 
ing anecdote : 

He  asked  one  of  his  sons,  "How  would  you 
go  to  work  to  invent  a  machine  for  accom- 
plishing certain  results  ?  "  The  answer  was,  "  I 
would  look  up  what  had  been  done  by  others, 
in  encyclopaedias  and  other  authorities,  obtain- 
ing as  thorough  a  knowledge  as  possible  of  the 
art."  "  If  I  should  begin  in  that  way,"  Mr. 
Harvey  said,  "  I  would  never  make  an  inven- 
tion. I  would  never  get  out  of  the  beaten 
track.  No,  I  would  solve  the  problem  in  my 
own  way  first,  and  then  find  out  what  others 
had  done  in  the  same  field  ;  and  it  has  usually 
turned  out  that  I  have  solved  the  problem 
by  an  entirely  original  and  usually  a  simpler 
method." 

He  possessed,  to  a  remarkable  degree,  the 
characteristic  questioning  mind  of  the  Amer- 
ican inventor.  A  machine  in  motion  not  only 

4 


INTRODUCTION 

explained  itself  to  him  quickly,  but  immediate- 
ly suggested  other  and  generally  simpler  ways  of 
accomplishing  the  same  result.  The  following 
incident  illustrates  this  trait  very  forcibly.  He 
had  invented  and  built  a  machine  for  making 
nuts  for  bolts.  It  was  a  complicated  piece  of 
automatic  machinery,  and  had  taken  many 
weeks  to  perfect.  After  his  return  from  the 
town  where  it  was  building  he  was  asked  as  to 
his  success.  He  answered,  "  I  have  had  one 
of  the  great  disappointments  of  my  life.  I  did 
not  see  that  machine  in  action  but  a  moment 
when  there  flashed  into  my  mind  the  plan  of  a 
machine  which  would  do  the  same  work  with 
about  half  the  complications  of  the  present 


one." 


In  his  relations  with  his  fellow-man  he  was 
simple,  straightforward,  and  supremely  honest. 
Everyone  who  had  business  dealings  with  him 
of  whatever  character  always  trusted  him  im- 
plicitly and  with  safety.  He  was  always  hope- 
ful, but  without  the  exaggerated  expectations 
common  to  inventors.  Having  become  con- 
vinced of  the  soundness  of  his  speculations 
and  calculations,  he  was  so  certain  of  the  ulti- 
mate success  of  their  practical  application  that 

5 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

he  would  not  entertain  a  suggestion  of  their 
failure,  and  it  was  a  very  unusual  event  when 
time  did  not  demonstrate  the  firm  foundation 
on  which  he  had  based  his  hopes. 

He  made  few  inventions  in  any  field  of  me- 
chanics which  did  not  remain  as  important 
factors  in  the  development  of  the  art.  To  him 
this  was  more  important  than  any  pecuniary  re- 
ward that  he  might  derive  from  them.  He  not 
only  was  preeminent  as  an  inventor,  but  he 
was  always  successful  in  interesting  capital  in 
his  enterprises,  both  on  account  of  the  origi- 
nality and  value  of  his  inventions,  and  also  be- 
cause he  had  always  a  carefully  drawn  up  and 
convincing  scheme  of  organization  for  the  new 
industry  which  commended  itself  very  quickly 
to  those  whom  he  was  striving  to  interest. 
He  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  business 
side  of  the  fields  of  industry  in  which  he  was 
interested.  From  boyhood  he  had  been  draw- 
ing, designing,  and  building  automatic  machin- 
ery, and  from  his  earliest  days  he  had  been  ex- 
perimenting in  the  metallurgy  of  iron  and  steel. 
His  mind  was  stored  with  the  results  of  years 
of  thought  and  practical  work  in  these  fields, 
so  that  when  it  came  to  the  problem  of  or- 

6 


INTRODUCTION 

ganizing  a  screw  -  manufacturing  plant  or  a 
steel  company,  his  was  the  master  mind  that 
worked  out  and  arranged  the  plan  of  organ- 
ization, formulated  the  items  of  outgo  and  in- 
come, and  demonstrated  the  ability  of  the  new 
concern  to  make  a  profit. 

A  very  striking  characteristic  was  his  con- 
sideration for  others.  This  was  shown  not 
only  by  kindly  acts  in  his  family  and  by  cour- 
tesy toward  his  friends  and  acquaintances,  but 
in  all  his  business  relations,  wherein  he  was 
always  regardful  of  the  rights  of  others,  even 
his  opponents.  In  the  competition  of  business, 
as  in  the  home  circle,  he  ever  displayed  the  qual- 
ities which  characterize  the  Christian  gentleman. 

A  high  tribute  to  his  business  probity  was 
paid  by  Mr.  Edwin  G.  Angell,  President  of  the 
American  Screw  Company,  in  a  letter  written 
to  Mr.  Harvey  on  June  27,  1889. 

For  over  thirty  years  there  had  been  a  very 
intimate  business  relationship  between  these 
two  men  of  a  most  varied  character.  At  times 
they  would  both  be  together  on  the  same  side 
of  a  business  transaction,  again  they  would  be 
opposing  each  other,  their  personal  relations 
always  remaining  most  cordial. 

7 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

Mr.  Angell  in  this  letter  says,  "  Nothing  has 
ever  impressed  us,  in  our  intercourse  with  you, 
more  than  your  general  spirit  of  fair  dealing." 

A  further  development  of  this  side  of  his 
character  was  his  generosity.  Whenever  fort- 
une had  favored  him  his  first  thought  was  for 
those  who  were  needy.  The  question  of  a  prof- 
itable investment  was  not  entertained  until  he 
had  satisfied  himself  that  he  had  relieved  to 
some  extent  the  necessities  of  others,  and  this, 
too,  in  the  scriptural  manner,  the  members  of 
his  family  seldom  knowing  the  extent  of  his 
charities. 

As  it  is  impossible  to  separate  entirely  his 
work  from  that  of  his  father,  General  Thomas 
William  Harvey,  we  have  included  a  short  ac- 
count of  the  life  and  activities  of  the  latter,  a 
study  of  which  shows  clearly  the  source  from 
which  the  son  drew  his  genius  and  habits  of 
thought. 

General  Harvey  was  a  country  lad  trained  at 
the  village  forge,  who  having  spent  fifteen  years 
of  his  early  manhood  in  a  frontier  town,  came 
east  in  1832  with  an  invention,  which  was  the 
mother  of  all  the  machines  in  which  a  head  is 
upset  on  a  blank,  and  its  influence  is  still  felt 

8 


INTRODUCTION 

wherever  a  die  is  used  or  a  bolt,  screw,  nail,  or 
pin  is  headed.  He  followed  this  up  with  the 
gimlet-pointed  screw  and  the  machinery  for 
making  it.  Prior  to  his  inventions,  there  had 
been  a  few  attempts  to  cut  the  threads  and 
nicks  of  screws  by  machinery,  but  most  of 
the  screws  were  made  laboriously  on  a  lathe  or 
a  "screw-cutting  gauge/'  All  the  steps  were 
taken  separately  and  by  hand. 

His  inventions  of  1846,  wherein  he  devised  a 
complete  system  of  automatic  screw  machinery, 
contained  the  basic  principles  of  all  the  screw 
inventions  for  the  succeeding  thirty  years.  He 
is  known  and  recognized  by  the  world  as  the 
original  inventor  of  the  gimlet-pointed  screw. 

His  son  left  behind  him  as  the  special  monu- 
ment to  his  memory  the  harveyed  armor  plate, 
in  connection  with  which  his  fame  and  name 
have  spread  throughout  the  world. 

A  perusal  of  these  pages  will  show,  however, 
that  he  has  accomplished  great  things  also  along 
the  lines  in  which  his  father  had  labored,  and 
his  machine  for  rolling  the  threads  of  screws, 
first  by  means  of  rolls,  and  afterward  by  the  re- 
ciprocating dies,  or  cold  forging  as  it  is  called, 
was  an  original  and  epoch-making  invention, 

9 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

and  one  which  has  caused  an  entire  change  in 
the  screw  machinery  of  to-day,  on  both  sides  of 
the  ocean. 

LINEAGE 

The  founder  of  the  family  in  America  was 
William  Harvey,  one  of  the  earliest  immigrants 
to  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony.  Soon  after 
his  arrival  in  this  country  he,  with  sixteen 
others,  founded  the  town  of  Taunton,  which 
was  named,  so  says  tradition,  from  the  town  in 
England,  whence  these  people  had  come.  Tra- 
dition further  has  it  that  the  great-grandfather 
of  William  was  a  certain  Turner  Harvey,  a 
noted  archer  of  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  (about 
1525).  He  was  said  to  have  been  in  his  time 
the  mightiest  man  in  all  England  with  his  bow, 
and  at  his  death  no  man  could  spring  it.  This 
bow  was  a  family  relic  in  the  time  of  William 
Harvey. 

William  Harvey's  oldest  son  was  Thomas, 
and  Thomas's  oldest  son  was  William,  and  all 
lived  at  Taunton.  William  Harvey's  fourth  son 
was  Jonathan,  who  lived  near  Taunton.  Jona- 
than's third  son  was  Ruf us,  who  was  born  about 

IO 


LINEAGE 

three  miles  from  Taunton  Green  in  1760.  He 
served  through  the  Revolution  as  a  "  minute 
man,"  being  frequently  called  to  the  service  of 
his  country,  and  rising  to  the  rank  of  sergeant. 
After  the  termination  of  the  war  he  moved  to 
Wardsboro,  Vt.  (1787),  where  he  married 
Sarah,  daughter  of  John  Jones.  He  was  a  man 
of  education,  evidently,  as  he  taught  school  in 
Taunton  for  several  years  before  going  to  Ver- 
mont. In  Vermont  he  bought  a  farm  and, 
later,  was  elected  town  clerk  and  justice  of  the 
peace  in  Wardsboro. 

The  oldest  son  of  Jonathan  Harvey  was 
Thomas  William,  the  father  of  the  subject  of 
this  memoir. 


IX 


GENERAL    THOMAS    WILLIAM 
HARVEY 

This  remarkable  man  was  born  at  Wards- 
boro,  Vt,  July  22,  1795.  He  attended  the  vil- 
lage school,  learned  the  trade  of  a  blacksmith, 
and,  at  twenty  years  of  age,  was  considered  a 
skilled  mechanic.  In  1815  he  went  to  the  west- 
ern part  of  New  York  State  under  contract  to 
put  up  the  machinery  in  a  new  cotton-mill 
which  was  being  erected  in  Jamestown,  a  town 
recently  founded  in  Chautauqua  County,  at 
the  head  of  the  beautiful  Chautauqua  Lake, 
whither  he  took  his  young  wife,  Melinda,  the 
daughter  of  John  Hayward,  of  Dover,  Vt. 

The  machinery  for  the  cotton-mill  never 
came,  but  the  village  settlers  urged  him  to  re- 
main among  them,  offering  him  a  building  lot 
as  an  inducement,  and  so  he  built  a  home  and 
a  forge,  and  became  the  village  blacksmith. 
There  his  five  children  were  born.  He  took  an 
active  interest  in  the  growth  and  development 
of  the  young  town,  and  his  name  occurs  fre- 

12 


GENERAL   THOMAS    WILLIAM    HARVEY 


HIS   FATHER 

quently  in  the  early  traditions  of  the  settlement. 
He  organized  a  train  band  and  became  its 
captain  ;  later  on  his  interest  in  military  affairs 
extended  to  the  State  and  he  became  a  Major- 
General  of  the  Twenty-sixth  Division  of  In- 
fantry in  the  old  New  York  militia.  He  re- 
ceived his  commission  from  Governor  Marcy, 
January  30,  1833,  and  for  many  years  took  an 
active  part  in  the  development  of  that  organi- 
zation. 

With  his  brother  Charles,  who  was  also  an 
excellent  mechanic,  he  built  most  of  the  machin- 
ery for  the  young  manufacturers  of  Jamestown. 
He  remained  in  that  town  for  about  fifteen 
years  and,  having  invented  certain  machinery 
for  making  screws,  he  went  to  Ramapo,  N.  Y., 
to  have  it  built.  Thither  he  brought  his  family 
and  a  few  years  later  he  settled  in*  Poughkeep- 
sie,  where  he  built  up  a  flourishing  screw  in- 
dustry and  devised  and  perfected  many  inven- 
tions. Here  he  was  associated  with  Matthew 
Vassar  and  Frederick  Goodell  in  the  Pough- 
keepsie  Screw  Company.  While  resident  in 
this  town  he  was  considered  one  of  its  leading 
and  most  substantial  citizens.  Later  he  moved 
to  New  York  City,  where  he  became  interested 

13 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

in  the  iron  and  steel  business  and  spent  much 
time  and  money  in  developing  the  iron  ores  of 
Putnam  County,  N.  Y.  At  that  time  he  was 
spoken  of  as  a  man  "of  great  experience  in 
the  manufacture  of  iron  and  well  known  as  a 
practical  mineralogist." 

He  had  examined  and  secured  possession  of 
many  iron  mines  along  the  line  of  the  Harlem 
Railroad  ;  among  those  that  he  opened  at  that 
time  was  the  since  famous  Tilly  Foster  mine, 
which  has  proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  valu- 
able of  Eastern  iron  mines.  He  found  the  ore 
too  refractory,  however,  to  be  reduced  profitably 
by  the  methods  then  in  use.  The  Harvey  Steel 
and  Iron  Company,  with  a  capital  of  $1,000,- 
ooo,  was  formed  to  develop  these  mines. 

The  late  T.  F.  Secor  was  the  president  of 
that  company,  and  General  Harvey  was  the  en- 
gineer of  mines  and  works.  This  company  was 
one  of  the  last  enterprises  that  he  undertook 
shortly  before  his  death.  At  this  same  time  he 
was  exploiting  a  silver  mine  in  Vermont  and 
lead  and  copper  mines  in  New  York  State. 

He  was  severely  injured  in  the  noted  railroad 
accident  at  Norwalk,  Conn.,  in  1853,  and  never 
fully  recovered  his  powers.  He  died  of  apo- 

14 


HIS   MOTHER 

plexy  at  "The  Grove,"  Canaan,  Litchfield 
County,  Conn.,  June  5,  1854,  aged  fifty -eight. 

Melinda  Hayward  Harvey,  the  General's 
first  wife  and  the  mother  of  Hayward  A.,  was 
a  godly  little  woman  of  good  Vermont  stock. 
She  was  born  at  Dover  in  that  State,  July  28, 
1795,  and  was  married  March  28,  1815.  She 
brought  up  her  children  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord, 
and  lived  to  see  them  all  grow  up  Christian 
men  and  women.  She  shared  with  her  husband 
the  vicissitudes  and  hardships  of  life  in  a  fron- 
tier town,  enjoyed  with  him  the  wealth  and 
comfort  that  came  as  a  reward  of  his  genius 
and  labor,  passed  through  the  hard  times  of  his 
later  life  and  died  in  New  York,  September  6, 
1850,  aged  fifty-five. 

The  General  married,  January  12,  1854,  Miss 
Sarah  Cowles,  a  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Pitkin 
Cowles,  of  Canaan,  Conn.,  whose  house,  "The 
Grove,"  was  the  scene  of  the  General's  death. 
Mrs.  Harvey  survived  her  husband  many  years, 
beloved  and  respected  by  all  his  descendants. 

Physically  General  Harvey  was  a  magnificent 
specimen  of  manhood,  standing  six  feet  two 
inches  in  his  stockings  and  weighing  two 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds.  He  had  great 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

strength  ;  a  tradition  is  current  in  the  family 
that  he  felled  a  horse  with  a  blow  on  its  head 
from  his  naked  fist.  At  fifty  years  of  age  it  is 
said  that  he  could  kick  an  object  held  at  the 
level  of  his  head. 

He  was  a  born  leader  of  men.  In  a  train 
band  he  was  the  captain  ;  in  a  bear  hunt,  the 
chief  ;  in  a  choir,  the  leader  ;  in  a  business 
organization,  the  master  mind  and  leading 
spirit.  He  was  associated  with  the  leaders  of 
thought  and  action  wherever  he  lived.  He 
was  active  in  the  early  management  of  the 
American  Institute,  was  a  director  and  presi- 
dent of  that  institution,  and  was  invited  to 
read  scientific  papers  before  the  meetings. 

Early  in  the  forties  he  conducted  an  ex- 
haustive series  of  experiments  with  electricity. 
He  had  at  that  time  a  machine  shop,  the  power 
for  which  was  furnished  by  an  electro-magnetic 
engine.  Here  he  was  frequently  visited  by 
Professors  Draper,  Henry,  and  Morse,  who  at 
that  time  were  all  experimenting  with  elec- 
tricity as  a  means  of  communication.  His 
electricity  was  obtained  from  batteries  of  cells 
and  at  an  enormous  expense,  and  the  experi- 
ment was  soon  abandoned.  His  enthusiasm 

16 


MRS.    MELINDA    HAYWARD    HARVEY 


ELECTRICAL  EXPERIMENTS 

regarding  his  electrical  experiments  was  very 
great.  In  1841  he  remarked  to  the  late  Dr. 
Hazelton,  of  Jamestown,  then  an  inmate  of 
his  family  :  "  If  you  live  to  the  ordinary  age  of 
man,  you  will  see  electricity  the  great  motive 
power  of  the  world."  Many  interesting  de- 
velopments recorded  in  his  notes  seem  almost 
prophetic.  He  deposited  silver  on  his  copper 
plates  for  his  batteries  in  an  electrical  bath, 
which  was  one  of  the  earliest,  if  not  the  ear- 
liest, example  of  electroplating  in  America. 
He  separated  iron  from  the  ore  by  means  of 
magnetism,  using  an  endless  belt,  with  fixed 
magnets  fastened  to  it,  to  extract  the  metal, 
but  had  no  simple  method  of  removing  the 
iron  from  the  magnet. 

His  son  said  that  he  devoted  the  last  few 
months  of  his  life  to  developing  a  method  of 
making  steel  from  the  ore  by  one  process,  and 
had  he  lived  but  a  short  time  longer  it  is  prob- 
able he  would  have  accomplished  his  object. 
At  that  time  the  desire  of  iron-makers  was  to 
discover  the  secret  of  "  Russia  "  iron,  and  the 
Harveys  devoted  much  time  to  experiments  in 
that  investigation.  They  observed  so  much 
secrecy  in  their  experiments  that  the  local  of- 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ficers  broke  into  their  shop  under  suspicion 
that  they  were  making  counterfeit  coin.  His 
last  patent,  granted  only  a  short  time  before 
his  death,  was  for  a  "furnace  for  manufactur- 
ing wrought  iron  from  ore." 

While  resident  in  Poughkeepsie  he  devised 
machinery  for,  and  was  active  in  organizing,  a 
pin-manufacturing  concern,  which  was  one  of 
the  earliest  to  make  the  solid-head  pin  ;  and 
late  in  life  he  invented  a  very  successful  "  pin- 
sticking  machine  "  for  placing  the  pins  in  the 
paper  wrapper  automatically.  He  was  also 
interested,  with  his  brother  Charles,  in  the 
hair-cloth  industry,  particularly  the  making  of 
stocks,  and  he  received  a  patent  for  a  machine 
for  weaving  stock  forms. 

A  very  early  invention  was  a  "  flanged  spike  " 
developed  while  he  was  still  a  resident  of 
Jamestown. 


18 


EARLY   SCREW   INVENTIONS 

One  of  General  Harvey's  earliest  inventions 
was  one  of  the  most  important.  He  called 
it  the  "rotary  toggle-joint  press,"  which  was 
patented  April  27,  1832.  He  said  of  it :  "  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  I  have  discovered 
a  new  principle  in  mechanics,  or  rather  a  new 
application  of  an  old  principle,  to  wit :  the 
knee-power  press,  by  a  rotary  movement  pro- 
duced by  the  revolving  of  wheels,  and  by 
which  a  powerful  press  may  be  applied  cen- 
trally upon  any  object  desired  in  a  more  rapid 
manner.  It  is  an  immense  power,  possessing 
all  the  advantages  of  the  screw  or  inclined 
plane,  with  the  additional  advantage  of  almost 
a  total  reduction  of  friction." 

Again  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  a  business 
friend  :  "  I  originated  a  new  idea  in  mechanics 
by  which  I  can  communicate  a  press  of  many 
tons  force  (fifty,  if  required)  some  2,000  times 
a  minute.  The  knowing  ones  at  Washington 
have  complimented  the  discovery  as  being 

19 


HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

more  important  than  any  discovery  that  has 
been  produced  in  the  last  one  hundred  years. 
What  I  shall  be  able  to  make  out  of  it  I  can- 
not tell.  It  is  adapted  to  making  all  kinds  of 
nails,  wrought  or  cut,  brads,  tacks,  railroad  and 
ship  spikes,  steam-boiler  rivets,  all  other  kinds, 
wood-screws,  bed-screws,  bolts,  pins,  type, 
combs,  buttons,  crackers,  cutting  files,  coining 
money,  pressing  bricks,  and  striking  all  kinds 
of  dies.  You  can  at  once  see  that  here  was 
a  field  opened  for  any  man  of  genius  or  am- 
bition." 

He  made  arrangements  with  Messrs.  I.  S. 
Pierson  &  Sons,  of  the  Ramapo  Manufactur- 
ing Company,  for  the  construction  of  various 
machines  for  the  application  of  the  new  me- 
chanical principle.  Its  application  to  the  head- 
ing of  the  screw  blank  soon  led  him  to  the 
study  of  the  manufacture  of  wood-screws,  and 
he  received  patents  for  new  screw  machinery 
March,  1837.  The  product  was  the  first  gim- 
let-pointed screw,  and  it  was  made  by  the 
Poughkeepsie  Screw  Company. 

A  graphic  picture  of  the  screw  industry  of 
that  time  and  of  General  Harvey's  business  ac- 
tivity, from  the  pen  of  Hay  ward  A.  Harvey, 

20 


EARLY   SCREW   INVENTIONS 

is  appended.  It  is  a  crude  first  draft,  but  is 
so  characteristic  that  it  is  inserted  without 
alteration  : 

From  Hay  ward  A.  Harvey  s  Memoranda 

The  toggle-joint  press  was  first  tested  at  Hoe's  in 
Gold  Street,  New  York.  Afterward  an  arrangement  was 
effected  for  the  developing  of  this  invention  with  the 
Piersons  at  Ramapo,  in  the  year  1831.  The  invention 
created  a  great  deal  of  inquiry  and  interest  all  over 
the  country  ;  so  much  was  this  toggle-joint  used,  so 
identified  was  the  inventor  with  it  that  he  was  known 
for  years  as  General  T.  W.  Toggle  -  Joint  Harvey. 
.  .  .  Through  his  invention  of  machinery  for  weav- 
ing stocks  he  became  acquainted  with  Frederick  Good- 
ell,  who  was  a  manufacturer  of  cotton  cloth  and  owned 
mills  at  Ramapo.  During  1834  they,  Goodell  and  my 
father,  founded  a  copartnership,  known  at  Pough- 
keepsie  as  the  "  Screw  Manufacturers."  During  the 
same  year  he  bought  the  Montgomery  Screw  Works, 
a  small  affair  and  very  primitive.  .  .  .  The  concern 
was  closed  that  winter  and  my  father  commenced  to 
get  up  a  complete  set  of  screw  machinery,  comprising  a 
header,  nicker,  and  shaver  combined,  and  a  threader. 
Before  building  these,  they  heard  of  a  threader  invent- 
ed by  Sloat  and  Springstern,  which  they  purchased  and 
afterward  put  into  successful  operation  at  Poughkeep- 
sie  in  connection  with  my  father's  machines. 

The  header  here  adopted  had  a  toggle  joint  with  two 

21 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

pair  of  feeding  tongs,  an  independent  cut-off  with  a 
stop  to  feed  against  ;  the  dies  were  closed  by  a  wedge 
motion.  They  had,  I  think,  three  of  these  machines  in 
those  works.  The  nickers  were  arranged  with  four 
rowlets  and  two  shaving  operators  to  each  upon  one 
ponderous  frame  ;  one  operator  to  two  rowlets. 

The  shaving  was  done  by  revolving  tools,  three  to 
each  blank — a  back  tool,  an  edge  tool,  and  a  face  tool. 
They  had  three  of  these  frames,  making  twelve  nickers 
and  shavers.  The  threaders  were  arranged  with  three 
machines  to  a  frame  and  it  was  expected  that  one  oper- 
ator would  tend  the  three.  In  this  machine  the  blank 
revolved  and  had  also  the  chasing  motion  ;  the  tool 
had  but  one  motion,  up  and  down,  but  was  brought 
nearer  at  every  successive  cut. 

Gimlet-pointed  screws  were  made  upon  these  ma- 
chines. The  operator  had  to  put  in  and  take  out  each 
one  ;  the  machine,  having  performed  its  work  on  the 
blank,  stopped,  and  when  supplied  with  a  fresh  one 
was  set  in  motion  by  the  operator. 

I  am  not  able  to  say  how  many  machines  of  this  kind 
were  made,  nor  the  amount  of  screws  turned  out  daily  ; 
I  should  say  about  four  hundred  gross  per  day. 

About  the  year  1837,  some  capitalists  from  New  York 
and  England  bought  out  the  interest  of  Goodell  and 
paid  him  $100,000;  they  afterwards  procured  a  char- 
ter and  formed  a  company  with  a  capital  of  $200,000. 
This  company  sent  out  machines  to  England  and  France, 
and  sold  their  patents  in  those  countries,  I  have  the 
impression,  for  quite  respectable  prices,  but  not  to  a 
great  profit  on  account  of  the  heavy  expenses  attend- 

22 


EARLY   SCREW   INVENTIONS 

ing  the  enterprise.  My  impression,  from  information 
derived  from  my  father's  old  correspondence,  is  that 
they  netted  about  $50,000. 

But,  to  follow  the  home  history  :  In  1838  or  1839  the 
Poughkeepsie  company  became  embarrassed  by  the  out- 
side speculation  (which  had  been  very  rampant  just  be- 
fore this  time)  of  its  directors,  and  they  formed  an  ar- 
rangement with  a  water-power  company  in  Somerville, 
N.  J.,  on  the  Raritan  River. 

At  this  time  my  father  had  exhausted  himself  finan- 
cially in  speculation  and  experiments,  and  was  compelled 
to  sell  his  whole  interest,  to  satisfy  his  engagements. 

Up  to  this  time,  say  1839,  he  had  invented  and  con- 
structed in  Poughkeepsie  a  machine  for  pressing  brick, 
which  sold  for  $30,000  (I  have  the  notes  yet)  ;  a  coin- 
ing machine  for  Mexico  (I  have  the  notes  for  this  in- 
vention, $10,000)  ;  a  horse-shoe  machine  ;  a  spike  man- 
ufactory, having  bought  back  from  the  Piersons  their 
interest  for  $30,000  ;  a  machine  for  making  hair  cloth 
(was  successful)  ;  machines  for  sawing  down  trees  ;  a 
complete  set  of  pin  machinery  and  for  sticking  the  same 
on  papers,  and  a  lot  of  type  machinery. 

Then  he  commenced  a  complete  new  set  of  screw  ma- 
chinery. A  shaving  machine  was  completed  and  a 
nicker  and  threader  but  partially,  when  the  urgencies  of 
his  creditors  compelled  him  to  make  some  disposal  of 
them — how,  and  for  what,  I  never  knew ;  but  the  whole 
thing  was  abandoned  by  him  and  the  machinery  went  to 
Somerville  when  the  machinery  of  the  Poughkeepsie 
company  went.  The  shaving  machine  above  mentioned 
was  never  put  into  operation  except  experimentally,  and 

23 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

a  model  of  it  is  now  in  the  possession  of  the  American 
Screw  Company.     It  is  a  complete  automatic  machine. 

He  removed,  in  1839,  to  New  York  and  took  up  his 
experiments  in  electro-magnetism  and  reaping  machines. 

In  the  spring  of  1841  I  commenced  the  drawing  for 
his  experiment  in  a  new  set  of  automatic  machinery  for 
making  screws,  which  was  patented  in  1846.  In  1844 
they  commenced  to  build  machinery  for  a  large  concern 
for  this  object.  Mr.  Charles  Ely  furnished  the  capital, 
and  a  concern  capable  of  making  about  eight  hundred 
gross  per  day  was  operated  at  Thirty-third  Street,  New 
York. 

In  the  year  1849  it  was  combined  with  the  Somerville 
Screw  Company,  the  New  York  company  taking  stock 
of  the  Somerville  for  pay,  which  stock  never  had  any 
market  value.  This  concern  eventually  failed,  and  its 
machinery  went  to  the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  it  hav- 
ing been  made  up  of  a  conglomeration  of  the  past  from 
every  concern.  There  was  the  Poughkeepsie,  then 
Crumb's  addition  came  in  with  his  long-lever  die  ma- 
chines ;  after  that  came  Grain's  Schenectady  concern, 
having  a  hodge-podge  of  everything  under  the  sun  ; 
and  then  came  the  New  York  screw  concern,  to  make  a 
Babel  worse  confounded  in  screw  machinery.  I  would 
say  here  that  this  New  York  screw  concern  has  been 
the  school  for  all  screw  inventors  and  screw  manufact- 
urers since.  The  Providence  company  secured  their 
business  through  the  apt  scholars  Sloan  and  Whipple. 
The  Taunton  company  had  a  part  of  the  machinery  that 
was  at  Somerville,  having  bought  it  of  them,  and  took 
time  to  study,  but  not  to  avoid  the  patents. 

24 


EARLY   SCREW   INVENTIONS 

The  closing  up  of  the  New  York  company  did  not 
deter  my  father  from  further  efforts  ;  the  patent  was  re- 
tained by  Mr.  Ely  under  an  arrangement  for  future  uses. 
My  father  had  in  contemplation  a  concern  that  should 
not  only  make  screws,  but  should  make  their  own  iron 
and  wire  rods.  With  this  in  view,  a  company  was 
formed,  mines  bought,  land  purchased,  and  a  few  fur- 
naces erected,  but  it  was  still  incomplete  at  the  time  of 
his  death,  which  took  place  in  1854,  caused  by  the  rail- 
road disaster  at  Norwalk. 

In  such  a  school  and  with  such  a  school- 
master did  the  subject  of  this  memoir  receive 
his  training — a  training  from  which  he  grad- 
uated with  his  eyes  ever  watchful  for  new  phe- 
nomena and  his  mind  ever  open  to  new  ideas. 
In  mechanics  the  development  had  been  in  the 
direction  of  automatic  machinery  ;  in  metal- 
lurgy toward  careful  study  and  laborious  exper- 
imentation with  new  methods.  The  effect  of 
this  training  is  evident  to  those  of  his  friends 
who  are  familiar  with  the  long  series  of  experi- 
ments in  the  supercarburization  of  steel,  which 
led  up  eventually  to  the  armor-plate  process. 

When  these  experiments  carried  him  beyond 
the  practice  of  the  text-books,  and  he  began  to 
talk  of  the  conditions  under  which  he  was  pro- 
ducing the  results  he  was  showing,  the  experts 

25 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

of  the  day  said,  "That  is  impossible,  the  man 
is  deceiving  himself  "  ;  such  criticism,  however, 
never  shook  his  conviction  that  he  was  on  the 
right  track  and  that  he  would  produce  a  steel 
with  qualities  entirely  different  from  anything 
heretofore  produced. 

The  result  crowns  the  work. 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

Jamestown  was  still  a  frontier  town  in  1824. 
It  had  been  founded  in  1807,  and,  while  its 
growth  had  been  rapid,  the  surrounding  for- 
ests were  full  of  large  game,  and  the  original 
owners  of  the  soil,  the  Indians,  were  plentiful. 
Hay  ward  Augustus  Harvey  was  born  in  the 
house  that  his  father  had  built  on  the  corner 
of  Pine  and  Third  Streets,  January  17,  1824. 
The  house  is  no  longer  standing.  A  con- 
temporary describes  him  as  a  "  bright,  active, 
mischief-loving  boy,  when  Jamestown  was  a 
boy's  paradise."  Fie  attended  school  in  James- 
town until  he  was  nine  years  old,  when  the 

26 


HAYWARD    AUGUSTUS    HARVEY    AT   ABOUT    TWENTY    YEARS    OF   AGE 


BOYHOOD   AND   YOUTH 

family  moved  to  New  York  City.  Of  his 
life  in  Jamestown  he  had  many  stories  to  tell, 
of  the  wild  animals  he  would  see  on  his  way 
to  school,  and  of  the  wild  men  who  would 
come  to  inquire  of  his  mother  the  whereabouts 
of  the  "  smith." 

When  the  family  moved  east  he  had  an  ex- 
perience in  varieties  of  travelling  which  is  illus- 
trative of  the  state  of  the  country.  He  travelled 
by  stage-coach  from  Jamestown  to  a  point  on 
the  Erie  Canal,  where  they  embarked  on  an 
"  express  packet."  These  fast  boats  bore  the 
same  relation  to  the  ordinary  canal-boat  that 
a  Providence  line  steamer  does  to  a  freighter. 
They  were  luxurious  relatively,  with  handsome 
lively  teams,  and  the  passengers  entertained 
each  other  with  music  and  dancing,  speech- 
making,  etc.,  anything  to  pass  the  time  away. 

At  Schenectady  the  canal  was  left  and  the 
party  rode  to  Albany  on  the  new  steam  rail- 
road, which  was  the  first  one  built  in  New 
York  State.  From  Albany  a  steamboat  took 
them  to  New  York  City.  At  that  time  the 
best  hotel  in  town  was  in  Cortlandt  Street, 
whither  they  went. 

The  General  had  some  machinery  building 
27 


HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

in  Ramapo,  and  thither  the  family  soon  went, 
travelling  by  way  of  Paterson  on  the  horse-rail- 
road that  preceded  the  Erie  Railroad. 

Of  the  life  at  Ramapo,  there  are  only  mem- 
ories of  the  pleasant  country  home. 

When  he  was  twelve  years  old  the  family 
moved  to  Poughkeepsie,  and  he  attended  school 
at  "The  Academy  on  the  Hill"  and  later  he 
entered  the  New  Paltz  Academy  for  the  pur- 
pose of  preparing  for  Yale  College.  This 
purpose  was,  however,  frustrated  by  the  great 
financial  depression  of  the  later  thirties,  which 
prevented  his  father's  carrying  out  the  plans 
he  had  arranged  for  his  education.  Instead  of 
going  to  college  he  went  into  the  factory  at 
Poughkeepsie,  where  he  studied  and  practised 
draughting  and  the  various  branches  of  me- 
chanical engineering.  It  is  fortunate  that  it 
was  so.  No  school  or  college  at  that  day 
could  have  given  him  the  knowledge  of  me- 
chanics and  of  metallurgy  that  he  acquired 
from  being  a  witness  of  and  participant  in 
the  experiments  of  one  of  the  most  active  and 
expert  mechanicians  of  the  day. 

As  a  schoolboy  he  entered  into  all  outdoor 
sports  with  great  zest.  He  was  a  very  strong 

28 


EARLY   MANHOOD 

man  physically,  although  entirely  untrained,  but 
the  active  out-of-door  life  among  the  boys  of 
the  New  Paltz  Academy  laid  the  foundation 
for  his  great  strength.  His  love  for  the  open 
air  and  outdoor  sports  was  always  with  him, 
and  he  was  never  satisfied  unless  his  horse  was  a 
little  better  than  any  that  he  was  likely  to  meet. 

The  family  were  all  fond  of  music,  all  had 
good  voices  and  the  sisters  received  a  good 
musical  education,  as  was  considered  proper  at 
that  time.  Hay  ward  could  play  almost  any 
musical  instrument  as  a  young  man,  and  this 
without  any  regular  instruction ;  he  also  culti- 
vated his  voice  and  became  very  fond  of  church 
music,  devoting  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  it 
throughout  his  life.  Probably  few  men,  even 
skilled  musicians,  derived  as  much  pleasure 
and  consolation  from  music  as  he  did. 

The  piano  was  a  solace  and  diversion  to 
which  he  turned  whenever  business  was  haras- 
sing, or  to  relieve  the  suspense  of  awaiting  the 
results  of  experiments  or  negotiations.  He  was 
the  leader  of  the  choir  in  the  Fourth  Street 
Presbyterian  Church  of  New  York  for  several 
years,  and  had  a  singing-school  of  the  old-fash- 
ioned sort  in  connection  with  that  church. 

29 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

His  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Cornelius  Winant, 
has  written  of  that  time,  and  from  his  letter  the 
following  has  been  taken  : 

MY  DEAR  NEPHEW  : — 

When  I  first  knew  your  father,  he  was  a  bright,  inter- 
esting young  man  of  about  eighteen  or  nineteen  years. 
I  may  have  known  him  previous  to  that,  but  it  was 
not  until  he  became  a  visitor  at  our  house  that  he  im- 
pressed himself  on  my  mind.  He  was  then  a  slightly  built 
young  fellow  of  most  engaging  manners  and  fine  appear- 
ance, dressing  in  good  taste.  He  was  a  lover  of  music, 
a  fine  singer  and  a  good  pianist,  and  his  society  was 
much  sought  after  by  the  young  people.  He  was  genial, 
kind-hearted,  and  considerate  of  others  to  a  marked  de- 
gree. He  appeared  to  have  no  faults,  certainly  no  bad 
ones,  and  living  with  him  and  your  mother  as  I  after- 
ward did  for  several  years  I  of  course  became  very  in- 
timate with  him  and  much  attached  to  him.  I  thought 
then,  and  do  still,  that  he  was  as  near  perfect  as  any 
man  I  ever  knew.  My  association  with  him  during  those 
years,  at  a  time  when  my  character  was  forming,  was 
most  excellent  and  beneficial,  and  I  have  always  felt 
that  I  owed  him  a  great  debt  in  this  direction.  .  .  . 

How  well  I  remember  his  first  invention — at  least  I 
think  it  was  the  first.  He  had  established  himself  as 
a  manufacturer  of  wire  in  Thirty-third  Street,  east  of 
Third  Avenue.  Finding  himself  supplying  a  certain 
size  of  wire  to  be  bent  into  blind  staples,  he  thought  he 
could  make  an  automatic  machine  to  do  the  work.  This 

30 


EARLY   MANHOOD 

he  did,  and  found  an  abundant  sale  for  the  product, 
until  he  thought  he  had  furnished  a  supply  that  would 
satisfy  the  market  for  years,  so  he  sold  the  patent-right 
to  his  friend  Frank  Upham.  Upham  hired  a  boy  and 
set  him  at  work,  and  lived  on  the  profits  of  that  little 
machine  for  several  years. 

Truly  yours, 

CORNELIUS  WINANT. 


Later  in  life  Mr.  Harvey  continued  his  in- 
terest in  church  music  and  for  many  years 
was  precentor  at  the  Trinity  Congregational 
Church,  at  Orange,  N.  J. 

After  the  formation  of  the  New  York  Screw 
Company  of  which  his  father  was  president,  he 
entered  the  service  of  that  company  as  draughts- 
man. The  English  patent  officials  of  that  day 
pronounced  his  drawings  to  be  the  best  that 
they  had  received  from  America.  It  was  about 
this  time  that  he  made  his  first  invention.  This 
was  the  machine  for  making  blind  staples  re- 
ferred to  by  Mr.  Winant  in  the  letter  above 
quoted. 

He  was  interested  in  the  blind  staple  indus- 
try for  over  twenty  years,  having  had  a  patent 
issued  to  him  for  a  corrugated  blind  staple  as 
late  as  April  2,  1867.  He  also  invented  about 

31 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

that  time  a  hay-cutter,  for  which  he  received  a 
silver  medal  at  the  exhibition  of  the  American 
Institute  in  1847. 

He  was  married  December  29,  1849,  to  Miss 
Mary  Matilda  Winant,  daughter  of  Cornelius 
Winant,  of  649  Fourth  Street,  New  York 
City,  whom  General  Harvey,  in  a  letter  describ- 
ing the  event  to  his  brother  and  sister  in  Ver- 
mont, speaks  of  as  "an  eminent  shipbuilder." 

After  the  wedding  the  young  people  went  to 
Somerville,  N.  J.,  to  live,  where  Hay  ward  took 
charge  of  the  wire-mill  connected  with  the 
screw  company  of  that  town.  In  1850  he  had 
returned  to  New  York  City,  where  he  estab- 
lished a  wire-mill  himself.  Before  the  business 
was  fairly  started  he  was  burned  out,  and  he 
then  entered  into  the  employ  of  the  Harvey 
Steel  and  Iron  Company,  which  his  father  had 
recently  organized.  Their  works  were  estab- 
lished in  Mott  Haven,  near  the  northern  end 
of  the  railroad  bridge  over  the  Harlem  River. 
The  stack  is  still  standing,  a  monument  to  the 
engineering  skill  of  the  Harveys.  The  ground 
was  swampy,  and  when  the  foundation  for  the 
great  chimney  was  to  be  built  it  was  found 
that  the  stones  disappeared  as  fast  as  they 

32 


HAYWARD    AUGUSTUS    HARVEY    AT    THIRTY-FIVE    YEARS    OF    AGE 


HARVEY  STEEL  AND   IRON   COMPANY 

were  thrown  upon  its  surface.  There  seemed 
to  be  no  bottom  to  the  swamp.  A  large  tim- 
ber frame-work  was  built,  and  upon  this  was 
erected  the  foundation  ;  as  it  sank  into  the  mud 
the  masonry  was  carried  higher  until  at  last  it 
ceased  to  sink,  and  then  the  stack  was  built  up. 
Its  stability  is  an  evidence  of  the  good  con- 
struction. He  was  also  interested  with  his 
father  in  an  experimental  iron  plant  which  they 
erected  in  East  Canaan,  Conn.,  near  the  town 
of  Norfolk,  which  was  called  the  Wangum 
Iron  Company.  What  the  object  of  their 
experiment  was  is  not  now  clear.  They  were 
experimenting  in  making  steel  direct  from  the 
ore  at  this  time,  and  as  they  tried  many  differ- 
ent ores  found  in  that  locality  it  was  probably 
the  peculiar  qualities  found  in  those  ores  that 
caused  them  to  build  their  plant  there. 

The  death  of  General  Harvey,  however, 
interfered  with  the  success  of  these  two 
companies  and  they  soon  discontinued  their 
operations. 

After  the  death  of  his  father,  Mr.  Harvey 
devoted  himself  to  developing  some  of  the 
former's  unfinished  projects.  The  death  of  his 
wife  occurred  on  June  26,  1857,  and  his  home 

33 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

being  thus  broken  up  he  had  no  permanent 
abiding  -  place  until  his  second  marriage  in 
1865.  During  this  period  of  about  ten  years 
he  was  engaged  in  many  enterprises  more  or 
less  successful,  and  he  made  several  inventions 
— among  others  a  "  railroad  chair,"  patented  De- 
cember 25,  1859  >  kut  ms  chief  operations  had 
to  do  with  the  American  Screw  Company  of 
Providence,  R.  I.  Soon  after  his  father's  death 
he  convinced  himself  that  the  screw  companies 
in  that  city  were  using  machinery  which  in- 
fringed his  father's  patents.  Accordingly,  he  set 
about  an  investigation,  and  soon  collected  proofs 
sufficient  to  cause  the  officers  of  the  American 
company  to  offer  a  compromise.  As  narrated 
by  that  company's  president,  Mr.  William  G. 
Angell,  "  while  negotiations  for  a  union  of  the 
two  companies  (the  Eagle  and  the  New  Eng- 
land screw  companies,  both  of  Providence, 
the  immediate  predecessors  of  the  American 
Screw  Company)  were  in  progress,  proceed- 
ings had  been  begun  against  the  Eagle  com- 
pany by  the  heirs  of  Thomas  W.  Harvey  for 
infringement  of  his  patents.  These  claims 
would  have  applied  also  to  the  New  England 
company.  Both  companies  had  made  use  of 

34 


AMERICAN   SCREW   COMPANY 

principles  covered  by  the  patent  for  automatic 
screw  machinery,  patented  by  Harvey,  May 
30,  1846.  The  claim  against  both  companies 
was  admitted  and  settled  after  the  organization 
of  the  American  Screw  Company  on  terms 
fixed  by  arbitration." 

As  an  outcome  of  this  compromise  Hay- 
ward  A.  Harvey  was  put  on  the  salary  list  of 
the  American  Screw  Company  and  acted  as 
their  confidential  agent  in  many  of  the  negoti- 
ations which  resulted  in  that  company's  secur- 
ing the  monopoly  of  the  American  market. 
This  connection  was  severed  about  1863  by 
the  American  company,  through  the  efforts 
of  some  of  its  directors,  who  did  not  appre- 
ciate how  serious  a  rival  they  were  liberating 
to  their  own  detriment.  In  a  very  short  time 
he  had  invented  a  full  set  of  new  automatic 
screw  machinery,  headers,  shavers,  nickers,  and 
threaders,  and  was  quickly  successful  in  inter- 
esting New  York  capitalists  in  a  new  screw 
company  which  was  called  the  <(  Continental  " 
and  which  was  formed  in  1865. 

On  June  21,  1865,  he  married  Miss  Emily 
Alice  Halsey,  the  daughter  of  Captain  Charles 
Halsey,  of  Bridgehampton,  N.  Y.,  a  sea  captain. 

35 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS    HARVEY 

He  then  took  up  his  residence  in  Orange, 
N.  J.,  where  he  remained  until  his  death,  which 
occurred  August  28,  1893. 

Mr.  Harvey  took  a  great  deal  of  interest  in 
the  town  in  which  he  lived.  Previous  to  the 
Civil  War  he  had  been  an  adherent  of  the 
Democratic  party.  After  the  war  he  support- 
ed the  Republican  party,  and  took  an  active 
share  in  the  local  management,  serving  frequent- 
ly on  the  local  committees.  He  served  two 
terms  as  a  member  of  the  Common  Council 
of  the  city  of  Orange,  being  elected  first  in 
1873  and  again  in  1879.  He  was  intimately 
connected  with  the  introduction  of  water  and 
sewerage  into  the  city.  He  was  one  of  the 
original  Water  Commissioners,  and  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  preliminary  Advisory  Board  of  citi- 
zens who  formulated  and  devised  the  system 
of  sewerage  and  drainage  which  was  afterward 
put  in  operation. 

As  a  citizen  he  was  a  quiet,  unassuming,  law- 
abiding  member  of  the  community,  always 
ready  to  do  his  share,  giving  his  time,  labor, 
and  money  freely  for  whatever  purpose  seemed 
likely  to  improve  the  happiness,  comfort,  or 
well-being  of  those  around  him  ;  doing  every 

36 


CONTINENTAL  SCREW   COMPANY 

task  that  he  assumed  honestly  and  thoroughly, 
ever  ready  to  give  of  his  means  to  the  further- 
ing of  any  charitable  plan  or  philanthropic  in- 
stitution. 


THE    CONTINENTAL    SCREW 
COMPANY 

As  stated  above,  in  1865,  having  invented  a 
full  line  of  screw-making  machinery,  Mr.  Har- 
vey interested  a  number  of  New  York  capital- 
ists, and  proceeded  to  organize  a  screw  company 
with  this  title.  It  was  a  strong  company,  with 
a  capital  of  half  a  million  dollars.  They  erected 
works  in  Jersey  City  at  the  corner  of  Washing- 
ton and  Eighth  Streets. 

This  was  a  complete  screw-making  plant, 
including  a  wire-mill.  Their  selling  agents  were 
Hart,  Bliven,  Meade  &  Company,  of  New  York ; 
Mr.  Bliven  being  the  active  head  of  the  Screw 
Company.  They  commenced  making  screws 
immediately,  and  soon  made  themselves  felt  in 
the  market  as  the  most  important  rivals  of  the 
American  Screw  Company. 

After  four  or  five  years  of  existence,  the  lat- 

37 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ter  company  bought  them  in  and  absorbed  the 
Continental,  sending  the  machinery  to  Provi- 
dence and  selling  the  buildings  to  the  Lorillards 
for  their  tobacco  business,  who  enlarged  the 
buildings  to  twice  their  previous  capacity  and 
are  still  occupying  them. 

Mr.  Harvey  was  the  Manager  of  this  Com- 
pany, and  closely  associated  with  him  in  its 
management  was  Mr.  Edward  E.  Quimby,  who 
for  a  time  was  the  Superintendent,  and  who 
had  been  a  personal  friend  from  early  man- 
hood. 

From  this  time  on,  Mr.  Quimby  was  inti- 
mately connected  with  Mr.  Harvey  and  his 
work.  He  drew  up  his  patent  specifications, 
acted  as  his  attorney  in  disputed  questions  be- 
fore the  Patent  Examiners  and  as  his  expert  in 
litigations.  He  was  constantly  consulted  in  the 
new  business  enterprises  that  developed  from 
his  inventions,  and  was  always  a  stanch  and 
loyal  friend,  a  wise  and  safe  counsellor. 


HAYWARD    AUGUSTUS    HARVEY    AT    FORTY-SIX    YEARS    OF    AGE 


OTHER   INVENTIONS 

After  the  sale  of  the  Continental  Screw  Com- 
pany to  the  American  Screw  Company,  Mr. 
Harvey  became  connected  with  the  latter  com- 
pany in  an  advisory  relation  which  continued 
for  some  years.  He  was  also  interested  in,  and 
a  director  of,  the  Peru  Steel  and  Iron  Com- 
pany and  the  Hart  Manufacturing  Company. 
He  was  associated  in  these  companies  with  the 
late  Charles  Bliven  and  the  late  William  H. 
Gunther.  He  devoted  most  of  his  time  to  the 
Peru  Steel  and  Iron  Company,  a  concern  with 
mines  and  forges  at  Clintonville,  N.  Y,  It  was 
for  a  number  of  years  a  very  successful  business 
enterprise,  but  the  panic  of  1873  put  a  stop 
to  its  dividends,  a  receiver  was  appointed,  and 
though  it  partly  recovered  itself  in  the  boom  in 
iron  that  occurred  in  1880,  it  did  not  live  long 
after  that  period. 

From  1865  to  1871  he  devoted  much  time 
and  money  in  an  attempt  to  secure  from  Con- 
gress an  extension  of  the  lifetime  of  General 

39 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

Harvey's  patents  issued  in  1846,  which  had 
been  used  by  the  New  England  manufacturers, 
and  were  considered  to  be  the  basic  patents  in 
automatic  screw  machinery.  The  attempt  was 
a  failure,  although  the  bill  passed  the  Lower 
House  in  1871.  Mr.  Harvey  always  regretted 
the  time  wasted  in  these  endeavors,  which  it  is 
true  would  have  resulted  in  the  General's  heirs 
realizing  some  benefit  from  these  inventions, 
which  had  been  appropriated  and  made  the  ba- 
sis of  enormous  profits  by  others,  but  which  had 
never  yielded  the  General  or  his  family  any  re- 
turn. This  is  often  the  case  with  revolutionary 
inventions. 

For  some  time  he  had  been  devoting  his  at- 
tention to  wire  nails  and  bolts,  and  in  1874  he 
patented  a  bolt  with  a  varying  pitch  of  thread 
on  which  an  ordinary  nut  should  be  fitted. 
The  upsetting  of  the  threads  when  the  nut  was 
screwed  up  locked  it  firmly.  This  was  called 
the  "  peripheral  grip  bolt."  In  1876  the  Har- 
vey Manufacturing  Company  was  organized  to 
make  these  bolts.  The  gentlemen  who  were 
first  interested  in  this  company  failed  to  raise 
the  necessary  capital  and  their  interest  was 
bought  out  by  Mr.  Harvey.  About  this  time 

40 


ROLLED   SCREW 

Mr.  Benjamin  G.  Clark  and  Mr.  Theodore 
Sturges  became  acquainted  with  Mr.  Harvey 
and  his  inventions,  and  interested  themselves 
in  this  company.  After  a  few  years  its  busi- 
ness was  taken  up  by  the  Harvey  Screw  and 
Bolt  Company,  which  concern,  however,  was 
dissolved  before  doing  any  great  amount  of 
business,  and  the  bolt  patents  and  business 
were  bought  by  the  Kansas  City  Bolt  and  Nut 
Company,  which  concern  is  still  making  and 
selling  these  bolts  for  railroad  use. 


THE   ROLLED   SCREW 

During  this  time  Mr.  Harvey  devised  a 
new  system  of  machinery  for  making  screws. 
Hitherto  all  screws  had  been  made  by  cutting 
the  threads  on  the  blanks  with  a  sharp  tool. 
All  of  his  father's  and  his  own  previous  thread- 
ers had  thus  "  cut  "  the  thread.  He  designed 
a  machine  for  rolling  the  thread  upon  the  screw- 
blank,  and  in  this  machine  the  thread  was 
partly  rolled  into  and  partly  pressed  out  from 
the  surface  of  the  blank  by  a  so-called  cold 
forging  process.  These  screws  have  a  sharp 

41 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS  HARVEY 

central  point,  which  with  the  large  thread  and 
small  neck  make  the  entrance  into  the  wood 
easy.  One  variety  of  these  screws  had  two 
bosses  on  the  surface  of  the  head  instead  of  a 
nick.  The  Harvey  Screw  Company  was  or- 
ganized in  1 88 1  to  manufacture  these  screws, 
but  soon  afterward  was  merged  into  the  Har- 
vey Screw  and  Bolt  Company,  which  also  took 
the  bolt  business  of  the  Harvey  Manufacturing 
Company.  The  late  United  States  Senator 
William  H.  Barnum  was  actively  interested  in 
this  combination,  and  an  expensive  foundation 
was  built  at  Lime  Rock,  Conn.,  it  being  ex- 
pected that  large  works  would  be  erected 
there.  The  foundation,  however,  remains  as 
it  was.  Internal  dissensions  ensued  and  the 
company  dissolved,  as  has  been  mentioned, 
the  screw  patents  and  machinery  being  sold  to 
the  American  Screw  Company  in  America, 
and  to  the  Nettlefolds  in  England.  These 
inventions  were  fundamental,  and  changed  the 
methods  of  screw-making,  both  in  this  country 
and  in  .Europe.  The  cold-forged  screw  is  now 
the  standard. 

Mr.   Harvey's   claim   to  priority  and   origi- 
nality in  this  invention  of  threading  screws  by 

42 


ROLLED   SCREW 

rolling  has  been  attacked  by  those  who  fol- 
lowed him  and  profited  by  developing  the  new 
system  of  screw  making. 

We  can  quote  no  less  an  authority  than  Mr. 
Edwin  G.  Angell,  the  President  of  the  Ameri- 
can Screw  Company,  in  support  of  his  claims. 

In  a  letter  written  to  Mr.  Harvey  on  July 
1 8,  1887  (after  the  purchase  of  the  United 
States  patents  by  the  American  Screw  Com- 
pany), in  which  the  purchase  of  stock  of  that 
Company  by  Mr.  Harvey  and  his  friends  in 
New  York  was  being  urged,  Mr.  Angell  says  : 
"  The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I  desire  you 
should  be  interested  with  us,  because  you  are 
entitled  to  credit  in  laying  the  foundations  for 
us  to  work  upon,  something  as  your  father 
did  for  the  automatic  threading  (cutting)  ma- 
chinery." 

Surely  there  is  no  one  more  familiar  with 
the  history  of  the  art,  nor  anyone  more  con- 
versant with  the  facts  of  the  case,  than  Mr. 
Angell. 

A  thread-rolling  machine  was  exhibited  by 
Mr.  Harvey  in  England  about  this  time  and, 
besides  receiving  the  Gold  Medal  at  the  Inter- 
national Inventions  Exhibition  in  London,  re- 

43 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ceived  highly  flattering  notices  from  the  daily 
press  and  from  many  technical  journals.  The 
following  is  from  the  Iron  Age,  September  3, 
1885: 

The  Harvey  Rolled  Wood  Screw. 

The  fact  that  wood  screws  have  been  manufactured 
by  rolling  is  one  generally  known  to  the  trade  in  this 
country,  and  those  who  have  used  rolled  screws  have 
testified  to  their  superior  excellence.  It  is  also  known 
that  they  are  practical  screws,  possessing  certain  ad- 
vantages over  screws  with  cut  threads.  It  has  been  re- 
ported that  their  manufacture  would  be  undertaken  on 
a  large  scale,  but  as  this  was  not  done  we  presume  the 
matter  has  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  those  for  whom 
the  subject  has  special  interest.  The  facts  we  give 
below  will,  we  are  sure,  be  found  of  general  trade 
interest. 

The  first  exhibition  of  the  Harvey  screw-threading 
machine  was  made  at  the  International  Inventions  Ex- 
hibition in  London,  where  it  was  awarded  the  gold 
medal.  This  machine  and  its  product  excited  great  in- 
terest, and,  as  it  is  an  American  machine  in  every  par- 
ticular, a  few  extracts  from  comments  in  recent  issues 
of  leading  English  journals  will  be  read  with  satisfac- 
tion. Engineering  of  August  2ist  says  : 

"  A  very  ingenious,  and  at  the  same  time  exceedingly 
simple,  machine  for  the  manufacture  of  wood  screws  is 
shown  in  the  western  gallery  of  the  Inventions  Exhibi- 
tion. It  differs  from  all  existing  machines  for  the  same 

44 


ROLLED   SCREW 

purpose  in  that  the  threads  are  not  cut,  but  rolled — 
that  is,  the  wire  blank  is  pressed  into  the  final  form 
without  loss  of  material,  the  fibres  being  squeezed  into 
the  alternate  projections  and  depressions  of  the  screw- 
thread.  From  this  apparently  simple  alteration  in  the 
mode  of  manufacture  there  result  a  great  many  advan- 
tages. Firstly,  there  is  a  considerable  saving  of  metal, 
i  ton  of  wire  serving  to  make  1,800  gross  of  No.  10 
rolled  screws,  i^  inches  long,  while  it  will  only  pro- 
duce i, 066  gross  of  cut  screws.  Secondly,  the  threads 
stand  out  beyond  the  original  diameter  of  the  wire,  and 
consequently  beyond  the  shank  ;  hence  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  send  a  second  bit  down  the  hole  in  the  wood  to 
enlarge  the  part  intended  for  the  reception  of  the  shank. 
Indeed,  in  many  instances  no  hole  is  required,  for  the 
*  gimlet  point '  actually  answers  to  its  name,  and  will 
lead  forward  without  any  preliminary  assistance.  We 
have  seen  one  i^-inch  screw  put  up  by  a  screw-driver 
into  a  solid  block  of  beech  right  up  to  the  head  without 
difficulty.  Thirdly,  the  threads  are  stronger  for  the 
rolling  process,  the  fibres  being  merely  bent,  and  not 
cut,  as  in  the  ordinary  screw.  This  may  not  be  regarded 
as  a  very  important  point,  as  wood  always  strips  before 
the  screw  which  holds  it.  But  when  the  Harvey  screw 
is  employed,  the  holding  power  of  the  threads  in  the 
timber  is  increased,  as  they  extend  the  whole  depth  of 
the  hole,  and  are  not  destroyed  at  the  mouth  by  the  pres- 
sure of  the  shank.  A  fourth  advantage  is  that  there  is  a 
saving  of  fifteen  per  cent,  in  the  cost  of  production.  It 
is  impossible  to  watch  the  machine  without  becoming 
impressed  with  its  great  merit.  It  turns  out  its  work 

45 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

with  marvellous  rapidity,  and  produces  a  screw  which 
is  cheap  to  buy,  easy  to  insert,  and  which  is  distinctly 
superior  in  many  respects  to  those  already  in  the  mar- 
ket." 

Iron  of  the  same  date  says  : 

"  Not  only  does  this  machine  claim  attention  as  a 
novelty,  but  in  a  far  greater  degree  as  one  of  the  most 
simple,  ingenious,  and  effective  pieces  of  mechanism  of 
its  class  we  have  ever  seen.  The  machine  is  not  a  large 
one,  but  it  gets  through  a  great  amount  of  work  in  a  very 
short  time.  The  screw-threads  are  formed  by  rolling 
the  blanks  between  two  metallic  surfaces,  both  cut  so 
as  to  form  dies  which  produce  the  thread.  This  is 
effected  without  cutting  or  waste,  and,  in  the  machine 
we  saw  operated,  at  the  rate  of  a  gross,  or  144  screws, 
per  minute.  The  screw  thus  formed  is  found  to  possess 
many  advantages  over  the  ordinary  screw  with  the  cut 
thread.  These  advantages,  besides  being  apparent  on 
the  face  of  it,  are  admitted  by  experts  who  have  thor- 
oughly tested  the  Harvey  screw.  In  the  first  place,  it 
has  a  true  gimlet  point,  drawing  the  screw  into  the  wood 
in  a  straight  course,  and  doing  away  almost  entirely 
with  the  use  of  the  gimlet.  The  thread  is  found  to  be 
much  stronger,  the  metal  being  rolled  up  and  com- 
pressed. In  the  ordinary  screw  at  present  in  use  the 
fibre  is  cut  and  thereby  weakened.  Another  point  of 
great  value  is  that  the  neck  of  the  Harvey  screw  is  of 
smaller  diameter  than  the  thread,  whereas  in  the  ordi- 
nary screw,  the  neck  is  larger  than  the  thread,  necessi- 
tating in  hard  wood  the  use  of  two  gimlets  to  avoid 
splitting.  The  extent  and  importance  of  the  screw  trade 

46 


ROLLED   SCREW 

are  hardly  known,  but  they  will  be  understood  when  we 
mention  that  in  England  alone  screws  to  be  used  in 
wood  are  made  to  the  number  of  130,000  gross  per  day. 
The  Harvey  machine  will  make  1,800  gross  of  No.  10 
i%-inch  screws  from  i  ton  of  wire,  whereas  the  old  sys- 
tem produces  only  1,066  gross,  showing  a  loss  by  the  lat- 
ter of  734  gross  in  i  ton  of  wire.  We  understand  that 
Messrs.  Ladd  &  Co.  intend  putting  down  a  plant  for 
the  manufacture  of  these  screws,  which  will  have  suffi- 
cient capacity  for  meeting  the  entire  demand  of  the 
trade.  The  screw-threading  machine  recently  formed 
the  subject  of  special  inspection  by  a  party  of  gentlemen 
interested  in  the  production  and  use  of  screws  and 
bolts,  and  its  working  elicited  from  them  expressions  of 
unqualified  approval,  which  we  unhesitatingly  indorse. 
It  is  almost  superfluous  for  us  to  add  that  the  gold 
medal  of  the  exhibition  was  awarded  to  this  ingenious 
invention.  It  would  have  been  strange  had  it  been  other- 
wise." 

The  Architect,  speaking  of  this  machine,  says  : 
"  The  Harvey  machine  differs  from  the  old  system  in 
this  respect,  that,  whereas  the  latter  cuts  the  blank  to 
form  the  thread  (causing  a  great  waste  of  metal),  in  this 
new  machine  the  threads  are  rolled  by  compression. 
It  is  a  small  and  exceedingly  simple  machine.  By  the 
old  system  1,066  gross  of  i^-inch  No.  10  screws  could 
be  made  from  i  ton  of  wire,  at  the  rate  of  15  screws  a 
minute  per  machine  ;  whereas  the  Harvey  machine  has 
an  outturn  of  1,800  gross,  at  the  rate  of  i  gross  per 
minute,  thus  effecting  a  saving  of  734  gross  in  i  ton  of 
wire,  and  doing  the  work  of  10  machines  of  the  old 

47 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

method.  The  screw  made  by  the  Harvey  machine  pos- 
sesses the  following  advantages :  It  has  a  true  gimlet 
point,  thus  drawing  the  screw  into  the  wood  in  a  straight 
course,  and  doing  away  almost  entirely  with  the  use  of 
a  gimlet.  The  thread  is  found  to  be  much  stronger,  the 
metal  being  rolled  up  and  compressed.  In  the  ordinary 
screw  at  present  in  use  the  fibre  is  cut,  and  thereby 
weakened.  Another  point  of  great  value  is  that  the  neck 
of  the  Harvey  screw  is  of  smaller  diameter  than  the 
thread,  whereas  in  the  ordinary  screw  the  neck  is  larger 
than  the  thread,  necessitating  in  hardwood  the  use  of 
two  gimlets,  to  avoid  splitting." 

The  London  Morning  Advertiser -,  of  August  ipth, 
says  : 

"  The  Harvey  patent  screw  and  bolt  threading  ma- 
chine is  exhibited  at  No.  1144,  in  the  west  gallery,  at 
a  stand  which  occupies  an  area  of  only  a  few  square 
feet,  but  it  turns  out  a  prodigious  quantity  of  work  in  a 
given  time,  and  it  is  claimed  for  its  results  that  they 
are  in  every  respect  superior  to  those  produced  by  any 
existing  machinery  having  the  same  object  in  view — 
the  manufacture  of  the  common  screw.  The  process 
of  manufacture  hitherto  adopted  consists  in  cutting  the 
thread  out  of  the  solid  blank,  and  it  is  objected  to  this 
that  there  is  a  waste  of  material,  and  that  the  metallic 
fibre  is  weakened.  A  further  objection  has  reference 
to  the  form  given  to  the  article.  The  thread  is  cut  on 
a  conical  surface,  which  is  continued  from  the  end  of 
the  thread  to  the  head  of  the  instrument,  into  which 
the  screw-driver  is  inserted.  The  shank  of  the  screw 
thus  acts  as  a  wedge  with  a  very  small  angle,  which  con- 

48 


ROLLED   SCREW 

sequently  has  a  strong  tendency  to  rend  the  material 
into  which  it  is  forced.  The  Harvey  machine,  accord- 
ingly, is  not  a  screw-cutter,  but  a  screw-roller.  It  does 
not  cut  the  screw  out  of  the  solid  metal,  but  rolls  the 
solid  metal  into  the  required  form,  and  delivers  the  ar- 
ticle in  its  finished  state,  free  from  the  imperfections  to 
which  reference  has  been  made.  The  machine  exhibited 
yesterday  turns  out  its  work  at  the  rate  of  a  gross  per 
minute,  which,  we  were  informed,  is  much  greater  than 
under  the  ordinary  methods  of  production.  The  Har- 
vey machine  will  make  1,800  gross  of  No.  10  i^-inch 
screws  from  one  ton  of  wire,  whereas  the  old  system 
produces  only  1,066  gross,  showing  a  loss  by  the  latter 
of  734  gross  in  one  ton  of  wire.  During  several  hours' 
trial  of  the  machine  it  worked  most  satisfactorily,  and 
received  the  approval  of  several  practical  men  who 
were  among  the  numerous  body  of  spectators  who 
watched  the  working  of  it." 

The  London  Morning  Post,  of  August  2oth,  says  that 
the  Harvey  machine  "  is  invariably  surrounded  by  a 
crowd  watching  with  amused  interest  the  simple  opera- 
tions which  it  goes  through  with  almost  human  sagacity. 
It  is  not  a  large  machine,  but  it  does  an  amazing  amount 
of  work,  turning  out  about  one  hundred  and  forty-four 
screws  a  minute.  This  screw  has  a  true  gimlet  point, 
driving  into  the  wood  in  a  straight  course,  thereby  do- 
ing away  almost  entirely  with  the  use  of  the  gimlet. 
The  same  machine  threads  iron  and  steel  bolts  equally 
as  well  as  screws  for  wood." 

The  influence  which  the  Harvey  machine  is  likely  to 
exert  in  the  American  screw-trade  is  admittedly  great. 

49 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

The  invention  is  the  product  of  many  years  of  thought 
and  experiment,  and  the  various  parts  of  the  machine, 
with  the  processes  and  the  product,  are  the  subject 
of  about  twenty-five  American  patents  properly  dupli- 
cated in  Great  Britain  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 
The  inventor,  Mr.  Hayward  A.  Harvey,  of  Orange, 
N.  J.,  has  been  all  his  life  identified  with  the  screw 
business.  His  father,  General  Thomas  W.  Harvey, 
was  the  inventor  of  the  automatic  screw-cutting  ma- 
chines, the  principles  of  which  gave  to  the  American 
Screw  Company  their  long  and  lucrative  monopoly  of 
the  wood-screw  business  of  this  country.  Mr.  H.  A. 
Harvey  has  contributed  largely  to  the  growth  of  the 
screw-cutting  industry,  having  taken  out  over  thirty 
patents  relating  to  screw-cutting  before  he  turned  his 
attention  to  the  rolling  process.  In  fact,  it  may  safely 
be  said  that  there  is  not  a  screw-machine  in  the  world 
that  does  not  embody  some  invention  of  one  of  the 
Harveys,  father  or  son.  Briefly  described,  the  Harvey 
process  consists  in  rolling,  pressing,  or  moulding  the 
screw-thread  partly  into,  partly  up  from,  the  screw- 
blank,  in  contradistinction  to  the  old  process,  in  which 
the  thread  is  formed  by  cutting  into  the  metal  of  the 
blank.  This  is  accomplished  by  rolling  the  blanks 
between  two  dies — one  rotating,  the  other  stationary, 
and  each  having  on  its  surface  grooves  corresponding 
to  the  screw-threads.  These  grooves  form  the  thread 
progressively  on  the  blank,  and  the  sharp,  well-centred 
gimlet  point  is  formed  in  the  same  operation.  The 
machine  itself  is  no  less  interesting  than  the  process 
and  the  product,  being  full  of  remarkably  ingenious 

50 


PERIPHERAL    GRIP    BOLT 


ROLLED    SCREWS 


WASHERS 


ROLLED   SCREW 

automatic  contrivances.  We  hope  soon  to  give  a  de- 
tailed description  of  it,  with  drawings. 

It  is  well  known  that  every  cutting  tool  begins  to  de- 
teriorate as  soon  as  it  comes  into  use.  Especially  in 
working  metal  is  the  first  product  of  the  cutting  tool 
the  best  product.  The  succeeding  products  depreciate 
steadily,  owing  to  the  wear  of  the  cutting  tool.  This 
is  such  a  fixed  and  recognized  fact  that  in  the  making 
screws  by  the  cutting  process  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  employ  a  large  force  of  "  assorters  "  to  separate  the 
screws  of  first  quality  from  the  "  seconds."  In  the  Har- 
vey rolling  process  there  is  an  instrument  which  does 
not  deteriorate  so  as  to  affect  the  quality  of  the  product. 
If  one  thread  on  the  roll  fails  to  do  its  duty,  a  score  of 
following  threads  stand  ready  to  remedy  the  defect  as 
the  screw  proceeds  to  its  finish.  The  operation  of 
"  assorting  "  is  reduced  to  a  minimum — in  fact,  the 
number  of  "  seconds  "  made  is  barely  appreciable.  In 
the  Harvey  machines  dies  have  been  used  constantly 
for  more  than  a  year  without  visible  deterioration. 

In  regard  to  rapidity  of  production,  one  Harvey  ma- 
chine will  produce  one  hundred  and  fifty  i^-inch  No. 
13  screws  per  minute,  against  six  or  seven  screws  made 
in  a  cutting  machine,  the  two  machines  being  of  about 
the  same  cost. 

The  economy  of  rolling  is  important.  The  entire 
waste  from  cutting  (about  twenty-five  per  cent.)  is  ob- 
viated. In  fact,  there  is  no  waste  except  that  in  the 
preliminary  processes  of  heading,  shaving,  and  nicking. 
The  rolling  process  goes  even  further  than  this.  A 
cut  screw  can  evidently  have  a  thread  of  no  larger  di- 

51 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ameter  than  the  wire  of  which  it  is  made.  The  thread 
of  the  rolled  screw  is  larger  than  the  diameter  of  the 
wire,  showing  a  gain  in  size  on  the  screw  list  of  two  to 
four  numbers.  For  example,  No.  13  screws  are  made 
out  of  No.  10  screw-wire.  In  brief,  there  is  a  gain  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  in  selling  price,  and  the  raising  of 
the  thread  pays  for  the  wire.  The  heads  of  the  screws 
are  brought  up  to  correspond  to  the  gauge  of  the 
thread. 

The  product  is  one  which  is  in  every  respect  satis- 
factory. The  gimlet  point  is  sharp  and  perfect  and 
readily  enters  the  wood  without  preliminary  boring. 
The  thread  is  deep  and  has  a  gradually  increased 
holding  power,  as  many  experiments  have  shown.  The 
neck  being  of  less  diameter  than  the  thread  is  an  im- 
portant advantage.  The  splitting  of  wood  and  the 
bursting  of  the  head  so  common  in  driving  screws  into 
hard  wood  is  entirely  obviated.  The  neck  will  follow 
without  resistance  the  opening  made  by  the  thread. 
Objection  is  sometimes  made  that  the  neck  does  not 
completely  fill  the  hole  bored  for  the  screw.  The  an- 
swer to  this  is  that  if  a  hole  is  bored  at  all  it  should  be 
no  larger  than  the  neck,  thus  insuring  the  hold  of  the 
thread.  If  no  hole  is  bored,  the  fibres  displaced  by  the 
thread  will  close  in  around  the  neck.  This,  however, 
is  a  matter  of  no  consequence.  The  hold  of  a  screw 
depends  wholly  upon  the  thread  and  head,  and  so  long 
as  the  neck  has  the  full  strength  of  the  blank  it  is  strong 
enough.  A  diameter  of  neck  equal  to  the  gauge  of  the 
thread  is  excessive.  Theoretically  it  should  be  no  larger 
than  the  core  of  the  threaded  part  of  the  screw,  since  if 

52 


AMERICAN  WASHER  COMPANY 

it  be  larger  it  must  offer  considerable  resistance  to  the 
tendency  of  the  thread  when  the  screw  is  turned  to 
draw  the  neck  into  the  hole  made  for  it.  Many  years 
ago  attempts  were  made  to  improve  cut  screws  by  turn- 
ing down  the  necks  to  the  gauge  of  the  cores.  The  im- 
provement was  obvious,  but  the  cost  of  the  operation 
was  so  great  that  it  was  impracticable.  Had  it  been 
possible  to  do  this  without  materially  increasing  the 
cost  of  manufacture,  all  cut  screws  would  now  be  made 
with  necks  as  much  smaller  than  the  gauge  of  the  thread 
as  is  shown  in  the  product  of  the  rolling  process.  It  is 
probable  that  before  very  long  the  manufacture  of  rolled 
screws  will  be  established  in  this  country  on  an  exten- 
sive scale. 


During  this  period  of  great  activity  in  devis- 
ing automatic  machinery,  Mr.  Harvey  designed 
several  different  kinds  of  washers  for  bolts. 
The  most  successful  of  these  was  the  spiral- 
ribbed  washer,  which  was  manufactured  by  the 
National  Lock  Washer  Company.  Within  six 
months  this  company  was  paying  substantial 
dividends,  and  has  continued  to  be  a  very  prof- 
itable property. 

In  1891  the  American  Washer  and  Manu- 
facturing Company  was  formed  to  manufacture 
other  products  of  his  inventive  skill,  viz.  :  the 
Harvey  ribbed  washer  and  spikes.  His  death, 

53 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

about  one  and  a  half  years  later,  prevented  the 
completion  of  the  spike-making  machine,  and 
this  company  has  confined  its  business  to  the 
manufacture  of  washers. 

These  were  very  prolific  years ;  at  the  time 
of  his  death  he  had  partly  finished  a  complete 
and  entirely  new  system  of  machines  for  mak- 
ing screws.  He  believed  that  this  new  system 
when  complete  would  materially  reduce  the 
cost  of  manufacture. 

Like  his  father,  he  died  when  his  mind  was 
in  full  fruition. 


THE   HARVEY   STEEL  COMPANY 

In  1885-86  Mr.  Harvey  had  an  experimental 
shop  in  Brooklyn.  Here  he  conducted  a  great 
many  experiments  with  bolts  and  nuts,  and 
while  thus  engaged  he  conceived  the  idea  of 
hardening  the  surface  of  bolts  and  nuts  which 
he  had  previously  cast  out  of  low  steel.  As  he 
described  it,  he  attempted  to  "  steelify "  the 
threads.  These  experiments  as  to  the  bolts  and 
nuts  did  not  lead  to  anything,  but  did  result  in 
his  obtaining  a  peculiar  product  which  pre- 
54 


THE   HARVEY   STEEL  COMPANY 

sented  some  very  interesting  qualities,  and  he 
succeeded  in  making  out  of  a  cheap  grade  of 
Bessemer  steel,  razor  blades  which  were  in  all 
respects  equal  to  the  best  refined  steel. 

Mr.  B.  G.  Clarke  and  Mr.  Theodore  Sturges 
were  immediately  interested  in  this  new  prod- 
uct, and  these  gentlemen,  with  Mr.  Harvey, 
organized  the  Harvey  Steel  Company,  on  No- 
vember 15,  1886,  for  the  purpose  of  developing 
this  new  process  of  making  fine  steel  out  of  low 
steel  or  iron,  and,  in  the  event  of  the  process 
proving  practicable,  to  refine  and  sell  steel. 
Patents  were  taken  out  on  the  process  and  fur- 
naces erected  in  Jersey  City  in  June,  1887,  at 
315  Washington  Street,  for  the  purpose  of 
manufacturing,  from  a  cheap  grade  of  steel,  low 
in  carbon,  a  steel  suitable  for  tools,  cutlery,  etc., 
for  which  heretofore  it  had  been  necessary  to 
use  an  expensive  crucible  or  cemented  steel. 

They  commenced  immediately  to  make  file 
and  tool  steel.  The  works  were  moved  to 
Newark,  Brill's  Station,  in  1889,  and  here  were 
erected  fourteen  Harvey  furnaces,  six  reheating 
furnaces,  rolls,  hammers,  and  the  usual  appur- 
tenances of  a  rolling-mill. 

The  file  and  tool-steel  part  of  the  business 

55 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

was  abandoned  in  1892  on  account  of  low  prices 
and  great  competition. 

In  addition  to  the  treatment  of  low  steel  in 
rods,  a  large  variety  of  commercial  articles  have 
been  "treated,"  such  as  forks,  steels,  parts  of 
bicycles,  jaw-plates,  rings  and  balls  for  ore- 
crushers,  tires  or  shells  for  rolls,  rolls  for  rolling 
metal,  punches  and  dies,  railroad  frogs  and 
crossings,  and  plates  for  safes  and  vaults. 

In  most  of  these  cases  the  treatment  has 
proved  a  great  success  ;  in  certain  cases,  however, 
the  treatment  has  increased  the  cost  beyond  the 
point  where  profit  was  possible,  owing  to  the 
necessarily  low  selling  price  of  the  articles. 

The  first  officers  elected  were :  H.  A.  Har- 
vey, President;  Theodore  Sturges,  Secretary 
and  Treasurer.  The  Board  of  Directors  con- 
sisted of:  H.  A.  Harvey,  Theodore  Sturges, 
Benjamin  G.  Clarke,  and  Percy  R.  Pyne. 

Mr.  Harvey  was  President  from  1886  to 
1891;  General  Manager  from  1891  to  1892; 
again  President  from  1892  until  his  death. 

Mr.  B.  G.  Clarke  was  President  from  1891 
to  1892,  his  term  of  office  being  terminated  by 
his  death. 

In  1889  Mr.  Harvey  treated  a  block  of  steel 

56 


THE  HARVEY   STEEL  COMPANY 

with  a  view  to  give  it  great  power  of  resistance 
to  blows  and  strains  which  might  tend  to 
pierce  or  break  it.  This  was  a  long-sought- 
for  desideratum  in  armor-making,  and  this  was 
the  object  he  had  in  view. 

Mr.  Harvey's  experiments  were  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  Navy  Department  in  May, 
1889,  and  at  his  request  they  furnished  him  a 
small  plate  six  inches  in  thickness,  which  was 
treated  at  the  Company's  works  in  Newark, 
hardened  in  Washington  by  Mr.  Harvey,  and 
tested  by  the  Ordnance  Department  at  An- 
napolis. This  was  the  beginning  of  a  large 
number  of  tests  made  to  determine  the  value 
of  the  new  process  of  making  armor.  The 
history  of  the  development  is  outlined  in  an- 
other place. 

The  new  process  was  called  "  Harvey izing" 
in  America  and  "  Harveying"  in  Europe  ;  two 
new  verbs  had  been  added  to  the  technology  of 
steel-making. 

The  Steel  Company  effected  an  agreement 
with  the  United  States  Government  and  intro- 
duced the  new  armor  into  Europe,  where  it 
was  eventually  received  with  great  enthusiasm, 
and  founded  three  daughter  companies  for  con- 

57 


HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ducting  the  business.  All  this,  however,  was 
not  accomplished  prior  to  Mr.  Harvey's  death. 
Already  the  Steel  Company  had  lost  Mr.  Clarke 
and  Mr.  Sturges  by  death,  and  Mr.  Percy  R. 
Pyne,  who  had  been  the  largest  stockholder 
and  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Directors,  had 
retired  from  active  business.  When,  therefore, 
in  August,  1893,  Mr.  Harvey  himself  died,  it 
left  the  Company  bereft  of  all  the  original 
officers,  except  Mr.  S.  S.  Palmer,  an  early 
member  of  the  Board,  and  who  was  elected 
President  in  1894.  The  succeeding  year  was 
devoted  to  perfecting  the  European  organiza- 
tions. 

In  December,  1894,  the  Bethlehem  Iron 
Company  made  a  contract  with  the  Govern- 
ment of  Russia  agreeing  to  supply  Harveyed 
armor-plates.  As  this  company  had  no  license 
from  the  Harvey  Steel  Company  to  use  the 
process,  a  suit  for  an  injunction  was  instituted 
in  the  United  States  Circuit  Court. 

Suit  was  also  brought  for  infringement 
against  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company.  These 
suits  were  settled  October  5,  1897,  and  decrees 
against  both  companies,  sustaining  the  validity 
of  the  patents  and  enjoining  them  from  using 

58 


THE   HARVEY   STEEL  COMPANY 

the  process  or  vending  the  product,  except 
under  license  from  the  Harvey  Steel  Company, 
were  duly  entered. 

Both  of  these  companies  took  licenses  ac- 
knowledging the  validity  of  the  patents  and 
agreeing  to  pay  royalty  on  all  armor  manufact- 
ured for  export. 

The  Iron  Age,  October  7,  1897,  said :  "The 
result  of  these  Harvey  suits  has  been  awaited 
with  much  interest  in  this  country  and  in 
Europe.  As  is  well  known,  all  the  govern- 
ments of  Europe  are  using  Harveyed  armor- 
plates,  and  the  process  has  been  patented  all 
over  Europe.  The  settlement  of  these  suits 
is  therefore  a  matter  of  great  importance  to 
the  industrial  world." 


59 


HARVEYED  ARMOR 

The  history  of  armor-plate  making  has  been 
from  the  beginning  a  contest  between  the  im- 
provements in  the  armor  and  improvements  in 
the  gun  and  projectile.  When  the  sides  of 
ships  were  first  covered  with  iron  plates  in  the 
early  sixties  a  wonderful  advance  had  been 
made  over  the  wooden  ship.  To  meet  this  ad- 
vance the  gun  was  strengthened  and  enlarged, 
the  powder  improved  in  quality  and  the  charge 
increased  ;  the  projectile  was  hardened,  changed 
in  shape,  and  increased  in  weight ;  to  meet  this 
again,  the  armor  had  to  be  increased  in  thick- 
ness, so  that  while  in  1861  four  and  a  half  inches 
was  considered  sufficient,  in  1879 the  British  ship 
of  war  Inflexible  had  part  of  its  armor  twenty- 
four  inches  thick,  backed  up  by  seventeen  inches 
of  teak  wood.  As  this  was  not  found  protection 
enough  and  made  the  ship  top-heavy,  there  were 
many  variations  tried.  The  "  sandwich  armor  " 
was  composed  of  alternate  layers  of  6^-inch 
iron  plates  and  five  inches  of  teak  wood. 

60 


HARVEYED   ARMOR 

Steel  was  used  in  place  of  iron ;  but  steel 
was  found  to  be  too  brittle,  if  adequately  hard ; 
iron  too  soft.  Then  compound  armor  was  de- 
vised to  meet  the  two  requirements ;  one,  a  hard 
surface  to  keep  the  projectile  out,  and  one  a 
tough  back  that  would  not  break  up  under  the 
impact.  This  compound  plate  was  a  high-car- 
bon plate  welded  to  one  of  low  steel  or  iron. 
Compound  plates  proved,  however,  very  defi- 
cient, owing  to  the  tendency  of  the  two  parts  to 
separate  at  the  weld  when  struck.  Other  man- 
ufacturers endeavored  to  toughen  the  steel  by 
adding  nickel  or  other  substance  to  it.  Never- 
theless the  power  of  the  gun  and  the  projectile 
kept  well  in  advance,  and  it  had  been  decided 
by  ordnance  experts  that  further  increase  of 
the  size  of  the  gun  was  unnecessary. 

However,  the  conditions  essential  to  the 
success  of  the  plate  had  been  demonstrated. 
What  was  wanted  was  an  extremely  hard  sur- 
face to  take  up  the  impact  and  pulverize  the 
projectile,  and  a  tough  back  to  sustain  the  hard 
face  and  prevent  it  from  going  to  pieces,  and 
some  means  of  uniting  the  two  under  condi- 
tions which  would  prevent  the  separation  of 
one  from  the  other  at  the  joint. 

61 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

At  this  stage  of  the  contest  the  United 
States  decided  to  have  a  new  navy  and  to  armor 
its  ships  with  the  best  armor  that  the  world 
could  furnish  ;  to  be  made,  moreover,  on  Amer- 
ican soil.  Consequently,  the  two  great  iron 
firms  of  Pennsylvania  were  encouraged  to  put 
up  large  armor-making  plants.  This  they  did  ; 
and  now  arrived  the  time  when  a  competitive 
test  should  be  made  of  the  different  kinds  of 
foreign  armor  after  which  the  new  American 
armor  should  be  modelled. 

The  competitive  test  was  ordered  to  take 
place  at  Annapolis  in  September,  1890.  Three 
plates  were  to  be  tested ;  two  from  Schneider 
&  Company,  Le  Creuzot,  France — one  being  a 
nickel  plate — and  a  compound  plate  from  Cam- 
mell  &  Company,  Sheffield,  England. 

Prior  to  this  test,  however,  in  June,  1890,  a 
test  had  been  made  of  a  small  6-inch  Har- 
veyed  plate,  already  mentioned,  made  by  the 
Linden  Steel  Company,  Pittsburg,  and  treated 
by  the  Harvey  process  at  the  Harvey  Steel 
Company's  works  at  Newark,  N.  J.  This  plate 
had  been  cut  in  two,  and  one  part  treated  and 
the  other  part  left  untreated.  The  treated  part 
was  hardened  by  Mr.  Harvey  at  Washington, 

62 


HARVEYED   ARMOR 

and  both  pieces  were  tested  at  Annapolis.  The 
untreated  part  was  perforated ;  the  treated  part 
was  uninjured.  The  problem  had  been  solved 
before  the  great  competitive  test  had  taken 
place,  and  the  fact  demonstrated  that  the 
armor  for  the  new  American  navy  was  to  be 
of  American  origin,  and  to  give  fifty  to  seventy 
per  cent,  better  protection  than  could  be  fur- 
nished by  any  old-world  armor. 

The  September  trial  only  developed  the 
value  of  nickel  as  a  toughening  agent. 

The  success  of  this  Harveyed  plate  induced 
the  Navy  Department  to  procure  a  Schneider 
io^-inch  steel  plate,  and  to  place  it  at  Mr. 
Harvey's  disposal  in  a  carefully  fenced-off 
space  in  the  Washington  Navy  Yard,  and 
here  with  his  own  workmen,  at  the  expense  of 
the  Department,  he  built  a  suitable  furnace, 
supercarburized  the  plate,  and  afterward  chilled 
the  supercarburized  side  by  sprinkling.  This 
plate  was  tested  in  February,  1891,  and  proved 
a  success. 

The  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Ordnance,  Cap- 
tain W.  A.  Folger,  in  his  report  for  1891,  says: 
"  These  results  are  remarkable  and  indicate  to 
the  Department  a  probability  that  in  this  treat- 

63 


HAYWARD    AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

ment  has  been  found  the  means  of  producing 
the  ideal  armor-plate,  a  hard  front  compounded 
with  a  tough  back,  without  any  weld  or  other 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  two." 

This  plate  was  attacked  by  seven  6-inch  ar- 
mor-piercing shells  from  a  6-inch  gun,  the  strik- 
ing velocity  being  2,065  foot  seconds.  All  the 
projectiles  were  broken  up  and  there  was  prac- 
tically no  penetration  except  at  the  centre, 
where  it  was  afterward  made  quite  certain  there 
had  been  a  failure  to  harden  properly  owing  to 
scale. 

The  Department  immediately  determined 
upon  a  series  of  comparative  tests  between 
Harveyed  and  un-Harveyed  plates  made  in  this 
country.  Accordingly  five  plates  were  ordered 
from  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company,  and  three 
from  Bethlehem  ;  and  under  the  supervision 
and  instruction  of  Mr.  Harvey  at  the  respective 
works  of  these  companies,  furnaces  were  con- 
structed and  the  plates  supercarburized  and 
hardened.  The  facilities  at  these  works  were 
not  competent  for  the  proper  chilling  of  these 
plates,  so  that  only  parts  of  each  plate  exhibited 
the  normal  condition  of  a  Harveyed  plate.  The 
results  were,  however,  conclusive  that  the  Har- 

64 


THE    SECOND    HARVEY    PLATE 

A  ioi-inch  Schneider  all-steel  plate,  treated  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  February,  1891.  Tested 
at  Annapolis.  The  plate  was  cracked,  but  none  of  the  projectiles  penetrated  it  except  the  fifth 
shot,  which  went  partly  through.  At  this  spot  the  plate  had  not  been  tempered  owing  to  scale. 


HARVEYED   ARMOR 

veyed  plates  were  far  superior  to  those  which 
had  not  been  treated.  Numerous  other  tests 
were  ordered,  and  on  July  30,  1892,  a  io^-inch 
Harveyed  nickel  plate  made  by  the  Bethlehem 
Company  was  tested  on  the  proving  ground 
near  Bethlehem,  Pa.  The  plate  was  attacked 
by  five  8-inch  Holtzer  projectiles,  each  weigh- 
ing two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  The  pro- 
jectiles were  pulverized,  and  the  plate  was  un- 
injured, the  tip  of  the  projectile  penetrating 
about  three  inches  and  fusing  with  the  metal 
of  the  plate.  This  has  come  to  be  recognized 
as  the  normal  reaction  of  a  Harveyed  plate. 

Naval  officers  pronounced  this  "  the  most 
wonderful  armor-plate  ever  made." 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  his  report 
said,  "  Never  before  these  trials  had  any  armor- 
plate  in  the  world  been  subjected  to  such  a 
test  as  was  represented  by  these  five  blows  of 
a  total  energy  of  25,000  foot  tons." 


HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

From  the  New  York  Times,  July  30, 1892. 

VERY  TOUGH  ARMOR-PLATE. 
MAMMOTH  PROJECTILES  COULD  NEITHER  CRACK  NOR 

PIERCE    IT. 

BETHLEHEM,  Pa.,  July  3oth. — The  first  armor-plate 
test  on  the  proving  grounds  of  the  Bethlehem  Iron 
Company  took  place  to-day.  The  test  was  a  very  suc- 
cessful one.  However  hardy  were  their  plates  in  for- 
mer tests,  which  have  heretofore  been  made  at  Staten 
Island  and  Indian  Head,  this  surpassed  all.  Of  the 
five  powerful  shots  fired  into  its  comparatively  small 
surface,  no  one,  nor  all  combined,  effected  any  material 
damage.  The  projectiles  simply  produced  small  de- 
pressions on  the  surface  of  the  plate,  and  made  not  a 
single  crack. 

Commodore  Folger,  of  Washington,  Chief  of  the 
Bureau  of  Ordnance,  John  Fritz,  Superintendent  of  the 
company,  and  Russell  W.  Davenport  were  more  than 
pleased.  The  target  was  a  io^-inch  Harveyized  nickel- 
steel  plate,  eight  feet  long  and  six  feet  wide.  It 
weighed  18,600  pounds.  An  innovation  was  introduced 
in  its  manufacture.  Ice-water  was  squirted  against  one 
side  while  being  tempered.  The  purpose  was  to  give 
the  outside  a  hardened  surface  to  turn  away  the  pro- 
jectiles. 

The  plate  was  firmly  fastened  to  an  armor-plate  butt 
by  twenty-four  bolts  screwed  into  thread  holes  at  the 
back  of  the  plate.  Five  shots  from  an  8-inch  gun  were 

66 


HARVEY    ARMOR    PLATE,    TESTED    NEAR    BETHLEHEM,    PA.,    JULY    30,     1892 

toj-inch  Harveyed  nickel-steel.     Five  shots  from  an  8-inch  gun.     Projectile,  250-pound  Holtzer. 
Velocity,  1,700  feet  per  second. 


HARVEYED  ARMOR 

fired.  The  charge  with  each  shot  was  eighty-one  and 
three-quarter  pounds  of  powder  and  a  25o-pound  Holt- 
zer  projectile.  The  velocity  of  the  projectile  fired  from 
the  gun  was  1,700  feet  a  second.  The  first  four  shots 
were  fired  into  the  four  corners  of  the  plate.  The  fifth 
and  last  projectile  was  fired  into  the  centre.  Each 
projectile  pierced  it  about  three  inches  and  then  re- 
bounded, to  fly  into  pieces  the  size  of  a  walnut. 

The  firing  was  in  charge  of  Lieutenant  J.  F.  Meigs, 
late  of  the  United  States  Navy.  After  the  test,  Lieu- 
tenant Meigs  made  the  following  statement:  "Com- 
paring this  test  with  the  plates  of  foreign  manufacture 
tested  at  Annapolis  last  November  a  year  ago,  and 
with  those  of  domestic  manufacture  fired  at  in  Novem- 
ber last  at  Indian  Head,  there  is  evident  a  very  ma- 
terial increase  in  ballistic  resistance.  The  velocity  of 
the  8-inch  projectiles  in  this  test  was  the  same  as  their 
speed  in  the  two  former  trials.  But  the  five  projectiles 
fired  in  all  at  each  plate  were  made  up  in  the  case  of 
the  two  former  trials  of  one  8-inch,  and  four  6-inch 
projectiles,  while  in  the  present  case  five  8-inch  pro- 
jectiles were  used." 

Commodore  Folger  said  :  "  The  test  showed  this  to 
be  the  most  wonderful  armor-plate  ever  made.  Its  re- 
sisting power  was  astounding.  Though  it  was  more 
severely  tested  than  any  other  plate,  the  shots  had  not 
the  slightest  effect  on  it." 

As  a  result  of  these  experiments  the  United 
States  Government  formally  adopted  the  Har- 
vey process  for  the  new  armor. 

67 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in  his  report  for 
1893  says  : 

"  Exhaustive  experiments  have  conclusively  demon- 
strated the  beneficial  results  obtained  by  the  application 
of  the  Harvey  process  and  arrangements  have  recently 
been  made  to  Harveyize  such  of  the  armor  under  the 
old  contracts  as  was  not  too  far  advanced  in  manufact- 
ure to  admit  of  the  change,  or  as  would  not  seriously 
delay  the  completion  of  the  ships.  In  consequence  of 
this  much  of  the  side  armor  of  the  Maine,  Texas,  In- 
diana, Oregon,  and  Puritan,  the  turret  armor  of  the 
Maine,  Puritan,  and  Monadnock,  and  the  barbettes  of 
the  Oregon,  will  be  Harveyed  nickel  steel.  All  the 
armor  provided  for  under  the  new  contracts  will  be 
treated  by  the  Harvey  process." 

An  agreement  was  made  with  the  Navy  De- 
partment in  which  the  Government  agreed  uto 
bear  all  the  expense  of  the  experimental  de- 
velopment of  the  process  as  applied  to  armor- 
plates." 

This  agreement  was  supplanted  by  another 
made  in  the  following  year  when  the  Govern- 
ment agreed  to  pay  a  royalty  for  all  the  Har- 
veyed armor. 

Of  course  the  success  of  these  plates  stimu- 
lated criticism  from  all  sides  of  all  forms  and 
degrees.  In  the  early  history  it  was  said  that 

68 


HARVEYED   ARMOR 

"  It  was  not  done,"  that  "  Mr.  Harvey  was  de- 
ceiving himself."  Later  it  was  said  that  "  there 
is  nothing  new  about  it,  all  old  steel-makers 
have  known  about  it  from  the  days  of  Tubal 
Cain." 

If  the  process  and  its  results  were  known  to 
all  old  steel-makers,  these  same  men  must  have 
also  known  the  rewards  awaiting  its  successful 
application  to  armor-plate  manufacture. 

The  requirements  of  armor  were  well  known  ; 
the  ship-builders  wanted  an  armor-plate  with  a 
hard  surface  and  a  tough  back  and  free  from 
a  tendency  to  separate,  but  no  one  made  a  plate 
fulfilling  those  conditions  until  shown  how  to 
do  it  by  Mr.  Harvey.  Moreover,  it  took  a 
good  many  failures  to  teach  these  "  old  steel- 
makers "  that  unless  they  followed  Mr.  Har- 
vey's directions  and  plans  exactly  they  would 
not  accomplish  the  same  results. 

Even  in  Europe  all  the  early  plates  had  to 
be  supercarburized  and  hardened,  and  the 
furnaces  designed  and  built  under  the  super- 
vision of  experts  sent  by  the  Harvey  Steel 
Company  from  America,  as  the  most  skilful 
experts  failed  to  find  their  knowledge  of  steel 
processes  at  all  adequate. 

69 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

From  1892  to  1895  either  Mr.  Dickinson  or 
Mr.  Hay  ward  A.  Harvey,  Jr.,  were  in  Europe 
for  this  purpose,  and  treated  plates,  at  Sheffield, 
England  ;  at  Glasgow,  Scotland  ;  at  St.  Char- 
mond,  Montlucon,  and  at  Rive-de-gier,  France  ; 
at  Dillengen,  Germany  ;  at  Witkowitz,  Austria, 
and  at  Terni,  Italy. 

Thus  was  repeated  in  Europe  the  experience 
of  America;  that  is,  all  the  early  plates  were 
made  by  Mr.  Harvey  or  by  his  assistants,  and 
everywhere  the  old  armor-plate  makers  had  to 
be  instructed  in  the  details  of  the  new  process. 


New  York  Tribune,  November  p,  1892. 
AMERICAN  ARMOR-PLATE, 

The  recent  competitive  trial  of  all-steel,  nickel-steel, 
and  compound  armor-plates  was  the  most  important 
contest  of  guns  against  armor  ever  held  anywhere. 
Other  tests  have  since  been  made  at  the  Naval  Proving 
Ground  at  Annapolis,  Md.,  and?  like  the  one  above  re- 
ferred to,  have  proved  the  superiority  of  the  nickel- 
steel  and  the  Harveyized-steel  armor  to  any  manufact- 
ured in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  American  Navy 
officers  and  steel  manufacturers  have  reason  to  feel 
proud  of  the  absolute  success  of  this  armor-plate  in 
the  severe  tests  made  by  the  British  Admiralty  at 

70 


AMERICAN  ARMOR-PLATE 

Portsmouth,  England,  last  Tuesday.  All  the  projec- 
tiles were  completely  destroyed,  being  broken  into 
small  fragments,  and  not  a  single  crack  was  developed 
in  the  io^-inch  thick  plate  used.  The  experts  admit 
that  the  test  was  the  most  important  one  ever  made, 
"  and  may  result  in  the  adoption  of  the  American  proc- 
ess for  making  armor  for  British  ironclads." 

This  process,  which  has  been  successfully  applied, 
is  a  treatment  for  hardening  the  plate  several  inches 
deep,  leaving  the  remainder  in  its  original  condition. 
It  is  intended  to  secure  a  hard  face  having  a  tough 
back.  The  object  is  to  keep  out  or  break  up  the  pro- 
jectile on  the  outside,  while  the  tough  back  holds  the 
plate  together.  The  plate  to  be  heated  for  hardening 
is  made  of  mild  steel  containing  from  .10  to  .35  per 
cent,  of  carbon,  and  after  being  formed  into  its  final 
shape  it  is  laid  flat  upon  a  bed  of  finely  powdered  dry 
clay  or  sand,  which  is  deposited  on  the  bottom  of  a 
fire-brick  compartment  in  the  heating  chamber  of  the 
furnace.  The  upper  surface  of  the  plate  is  then  cov- 
ered with  powdered  carbonaceous  material,  tightly 
packed,  and  over  it  is  a  layer  of  sand  covered  with 
fire-bricks.  The  furnace  is  then  lighted,  and  raised  to 
a  temperature  sufficient  to  melt  cast  iron,  and  this  heat 
is  maintained  for  a  greater  or  less  period,  according  to 
the  amount  of  carbonizing  to  be  effected.  About  five 
days  are  said  to  be  necessary  to  carbonize  a  plate  ten 
and  one-half  inches  thick.  It  is  a  most  important  tri- 
umph of  American  inventive  talent,  and  seems  destined 
to  revolutionize  modern  methods  of  warfare. 


THE  HARVEY  ARMOR  IN  EUROPE 

In  January,  1892,  the  Harvey  Steel  Com- 
pany contracted  with  Mr.  Edwin  Marshall  Fox 
to  become  their  representative  in  Europe  and 
present  the  claims  of  the  Harvey  armor-plate 
to  the  ministers  of  marine  of  the  various  na- 
tions, and  shortly  afterward  Mr.  Fox  sailed 
for  Europe. 

His  first  visit  was  to  Russia,  as  the  Govern- 
ment of  that  country  was,  at  the  time,  about 
to  construct  two  new  battle-ships  requiring  a 
large  quantity  of  armor,  and  he  sought  to  im- 
press upon  his  Excellency  Minister  Tchichakof 
the  great  advantage  of  the  Harvey  plate  over 
compound  plates  then  employed.  The  Min- 
ister ordered  a  trial  Harvey  plate  to  be  made 
and  tested.  As  no  armor-plant  existed  in 
Russia  capable  of  making  a  plate  of  the  thick- 
ness required  by  the  Government,  it  became 
necessary  to  have  the  same  constructed  else- 
where, so  Mr.  Fox  proceeded  to  France  to 

arrange  to  have  the  plate  manufactured  by  one 

72 


THE   HARVEY   ARMOR  IN   EUROPE 

of  the  armor  firms  of  that  country.  He  found, 
however,  much  opposition,  and  was  unable  to 
make  a  contract  for  the  manufacture  of  this 
trial  plate. 

He  then  went  to  England  and  visited  the 
leading  armor  makers  of  that  country,  but  they 
all  declined  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
new  invention. 

The  time  thus  consumed  in  endeavoring  to 
get  a  trial  plate  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
the  Russian  Government  resulted  in  the  oppor- 
tunity being  lost  of  securing  a  contract  for 
armor-plate  for  the  Russian  battle-ships  in  ques- 
tion, as  the  Government  would  not  wait. 

Mr.  Fox  then  endeavored  to  interest  the 
British  Government  in  the  invention.  He  laid 
all  the  facts  before  the  Chief  Constructor  of  the 
Navy,  Sir  William  White,  who,  after  consider- 
ation, concluded  to  give  the  new  armor-plate 
a  trial.  The  Admiralty  gave  an  order  for  an 
armor-plate  to  be  made  by  the  Harvey  process, 
but  stipulated  that  the  plate  must  be  made  in 
England. 

As  all  the  armor  manufacturers  in  the  country 
positively  refused  to  assist  in  any  way  the  intro- 
duction of  the  new  invention,  Mr.  Fox  deter- 

73 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

mined  to  form  a  company  which  would  make 
armor-plates  in  England,  and  thus  be  indepen- 
dent of  the  existing  manufacturers.  To  this 
end,  as  a  preliminary  step,  he  formed  a  syndicate 
of  many  prominent  men,  among  whom  were 
E.  Windsor  Richards,  President  of  the  Iron  and 
Steel  Institute ;  Admiral  Fitzgeorge,  son  of  His 
Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of  Cambridge; 
Lord  Sudley,  Major-General  Stuart  Nicholson, 
Earl  Cairnes,  and  Sir  Norman  Pringle,  Bart. 
He  also  received  assurances  of  strong  financial 
support  from  bankers  and  others. 

The  position  thus  taken  of  acting  indepen- 
dently of  the  armor  manufacturers  led  to  an 
important  modification  of  their  attitude  toward 
the  new  invention,  and  soon  the  syndicate  were 
enabled  to  contract  with  one  of  the  firms, 
Messrs.  Vicker's  Sons  &  Company,  for  a  trial 
plate  for  the  British  Government.  They  at 
once  proceeded  to  erect  a  furnace  at  the  works 
of  that  company  in  Sheffield. 

The  plate  in  question  had  the  following 
dimensions  :  Eight  feet  long,  six  feet  wide,  and 
ten  and  one  half  inches  thick.  When  finished 
it  was  placed  for  trial  on  the  proving  ship 
Nettle  at  Portsmouth  harbor,  and  the  trial 

74 


FIRST    ENGLISH    PLATE,    TESTED    NOVEMBER    I,     1892 


THE  HARVEY  ARMOR  IN  EUROPE 

took  place  November  i,  1892.  Five  shots  were 
fired  at  the  plate,  each  shot  weighing  one  hun- 
dred pounds.  The  striking  velocity  of  each  shot 
was  about  1,975  foot  seconds.  The  shot  were 
all  smashed  on  the  surface  of  the  plate,  and 
the  penetration  in  no  case  was  more  than  three 
inches.  Sir  William  White  and  the  other  offi- 
cials present  were  much  surprised  and  pleased 
at  the  result,  for  they  had  never  seen  anything 
before  so  remarkably  effective  in  armor  trials. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  letter 
received  from  Mr.  Fox  at  this  time. 

5  WATERLOO  PLACE,  LONDON,  S.  W., 
November  2,  1892. 

To  THE  BOARD  OF  DIRECTORS,  HARVEY  STEEL  COMPANY, 
NEW  YORK. 

Gentlemen  :  It  is  with  much  pleasure  that  I  confirm 
my  cable  information  about  the  grand  success  of  the 
Admiralty  trial. 

The  Government  officials  present  were  Captain  Pear- 
son, Commander  of  the  Excellent,  Mr.  W.  H.  White, 
C.  B.,  Director  of  Naval  Construction,  a  Committee 
from  the  School  of  Gunnery,  and  one  from  the  Ordnance 
Department,  besides  officials  from  Shoeburyness. 

We  boarded  the  Government  tug  at  ten  o'clock  and 
in  thirty  minutes  had  arrived  at  the  Nettle,  which  was 
off  Whale  Island,  in  the  harbor  entrance. 

Everything  on  the  Nettle  was  in  readiness.  The  tar- 
75 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

get  had  been  painted  and,  excepting  for  the  burn  in  the 
upper  left-hand  corner,  looked  very  nice  indeed. 

The  details  of  firing  were  as  follows  :  Gun,  6-inch 
B.  L.  R. ;  distance  of  target  from  muzzle,  30  feet ;  pro- 
jectiles, three  Holtzer,  two  Palliser ;  weight  of  projectile, 
100  pounds  ;  powder  charge,  48  pounds,  E.  X.  E.  ;  ve- 
locity, 1,975  foot  seconds. 

The  plate  was  supported  by  side  plates  of  iron  and 
had  the  usual  backing,  which  I  understand  to  be  three 
foot  six  of  oak  and  a  thin  iron  plate. 

When  all  was  cleared  for  action  everyone  but  the  gun- 
ner went  below  and  the  order  to  fire  was  given.  Re- 
turning to  the  deck  we  saw,  as  soon  as  the  smoke 
cleared  away,  that  the  plate  was  all  right ;  the  shell  had 
been  smashed  into  small  fragments,  the  point  welding 
by  the  heat  of  impact  into  the  plate  at  a  depth  (appar- 
ently) of  an  inch  or  so.  The  indent  was  trifling  and  no 
sign  of  a  crack  was  visible. 

The  second  shot  was  substantially  the  same.  The 
third  and  fourth  Pallisers  seemed  to  be  as  good  as  the 
Holtzer.  They  each  scooped  out  a  small  circular  place 
about  one  and  a  half  inch  deep  and  about  (I  judge)  six 
inches  in  diameter. 

After  the  fifth  shot  we  all  carefully  examined  the 
plate.  It  was  simply  perfect,  and  apparently  could 
have  stood  five  more  shots  without  material  injury. 
Not  a  crack  was  to  be  seen.  Everybody  was  delighted. 

On  landing,  Admiral  Colomb,  Major  Geary,  Albert 
and  Thomas  Vickers  and  myself  all  went  to  the  tele- 
graph-office each  to  telegraph  his  friends,  and  I  suggest- 
ed that  we  all  join  in  one  cable  to  you.  The  proposition 

76 


THE  HARVEY  ARMOR  IN  EUROPE 

was  received  with  joy.  I  wrote  the  despatch,  Vickers 
amended  it  by  saying  "  Put  in  that  we  all  think  it  the 
best  plate  ever  fired  at  in  any  country  ;  "  and  I  inserted 
the  same.  We  all  then  adjoined  to  the  Keppel's  Head 
Hotel  and  in  a  glass  of  gold  seal  champagne  I  proposed 
the  health  of  Hayward  Augustus  Harvey,  a  toast  that 
was  drank,  I  assure  you,  with  downright  enthusiasm. 
Very  truly  yours, 

(Signed)     EDWIN  M.  Fox. 

Admiral  Colomb  has  just  been  in  and  says  that  he 
fully  believes  the  plate  would  have  stood  five  more 
shots.  "  Not  only  were  there  no  cracks,"  he  observed, 
"  but  there  wasn't  even  the  tendency  to  crack.  It  is  a 
great — a  vast  triumph." 

(Signed)     E.  M.  F. 


It  was  now  evident  that  Mr.  Harvey's  inven- 
tion was  all  that  he  claimed  for  it,  and  that 
plates  made  under  his  process  were  fifty  per 
cent,  better  than  those  previously  made.  The 
armor  makers,  however,  were  not  yet  prepared 
to  accept  the  situation,  at  least  to  the  extent  of 
paying  tribute  to  the  American  inventor,  for 
one  of  the  firms  immediately  commenced  to 
contest  the  validity  of  Mr.  Harvey's  patents. 
Mr.  Fox  met  this  difficulty  by  retaining  Sir 
Richard  Webster,  Q.  C.,  previously  Attorney- 
General;  Mr.  Fletcher  Moulton,  Q.  C.,  and 

77 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

Mr.  Aston,  Q.  C.  Before  the  matter  came  to 
court,  however,  an  adjustment  of  all  the  differ- 
ences was  arrived  at,  and  a  company  formed 
called  the  Harvey  Steel  Company  of  Great 
Britain,  Limited,  with  a  capital  of  ,£190,000, 
and  the  various  armor-making  firms  promptly 
took  license  therefrom. 

The  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  in  his  re- 
port to  Parliament  in  March,  1894,  reports  as 
follows  : 

"  The  past  year  has  been  remarkable  for  the  results 
obtained  from  experiments  conducted  with  steel  armor 
treated  by  the  Harvey  process.  Armor-plates  supplied 
by  five  firms  have  been  tested  by  and  for  the  Admiralty. 
The  investigation  has  been  most  thorough  and  exten- 
sive, and  as  a  result  orders  have  been  given  for  Har- 
veyed  steel  armor  for  the  Renown,  Majestic,  and  Mag- 
nificent. In  the  course  of  the  experiments  the  use  of 
nickel  as  an  alloy  for  steel  for  the  purpose  of  armor- 
plates  has  been  fully  tested.  It  has  been  established 
that  Harveyed  plates  without  nickel  in  the  steel  show 
resistance  to  modern  projectiles  as  great  as  any  hitherto 
obtained  where  nickel  was  combined  with  steel  in  plates 
also  treated  by  the  Harvey  Process.  The  consequence 
of  adopting  this  new  system  will  be  a  great  saving  in 
cost  for  a  given  defence.  By  means  of  these  improve- 
ments the  power  of  defence  obtainable  with  certain 
thickness  and  weight  of  armors  has  been  very  greatly 

78 


THE   HARVEY   ARMOR   IN   EUROPE 

increased,  and  this  circumstance  must  considerably 
affect  the  designs  of  battle-ships  to  be  laid  down  in 
the  future." 

Meanwhile,  much  opposition  was  being  made 
by  the  firm  of  Schneider  &  Company,  of  Le- 
Creusot,  France,  who  had  a  patented  armor- 
plate  of  their  own. 

As  the  result  of  protracted  negotiation  a 
company  was  formed  known  as  the  socie'te' 
des  Precedes  Harvey,  with  a  capital  of  3,000,- 
ooo  francs,  and  licenses  were  granted  to  the 
St.  Chamond  Steel  Works,  the  Chatillon  et 
Commentry  Company,  and  Marrel  Fr&res,  and 
a  trial  made  for  the  Government  of  France, 
which  proved  equally  successful  to  the  English 
trial  plate.  Subsequently  Messrs.  Schneider 
took  a  license  to  manufacture  Harvey  plate. 

Mr.  Fox  next  formed  a  company  for  the 
rest  of  Europe,  which  became  incorporated  as 
the  Harvey  Continental  Steel  Company,  Lim- 
ited, with  a  capital  of  ,£120,000.  Each  of 
these  companies  had  certain  prescribed  limits 
for  the  manufacture  of  the  new  invention,  the 
English  Company  having  the  field  of  Great 
Britain,  the  French  having  the  rights  of  France, 
and  the  Continental  Company  having  the  rights 

79 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

of  the  rest  of  the  world,  except  the  United 
States,  the  rights  for  which  remained  in  the 
Harvey  Steel  Company  of  New  Jersey. 

In  July,  1893,  Mr.  Fox  returned  to  America 
to  submit  his  report  and  bring  the  first  pay- 
ment on  account  to  the  Harvey  Company. 
He  spent  several  hours  with  Mr.  Harvey  re- 
counting the  triumphs  of  the  new  armor  and 
explaining  the  details  of  the  great  revolution 
which  the  invention  had  caused  in  the  armor- 
plate  industry  of  the  world,  and  he  predicted 
that  the  Harvey  armor-plate  was  bound  to 
supersede  all  other  armor-plates  in  all  nations. 
He  assured  Mr.  Harvey  that  so  highly  was  his 
great  invention  thought  of  in  Europe  by  the 
different  governments  that  it  was  not  unlikely 
that  before  long  he,  Mr.  Harvey,  would  receive 
decorations  and  titles  for  his  great  discovery. 
It  was  most  gratifying  to  his  friends  that  Mr, 
Harvey  should  have  had  this  opportunity  to 
have  the  whole  scope  of  the  enterprise  in 
Europe  thus  laid  before  him  at  that  time,  for  a 
month  later  he  was  dead. 

The  success  of  the  armor-plate  continued  to 
grow,  each  additional  test  proving  more  and 
more  emphatically  the  wonderful  character  of 

so 


THE   HARVEY   ARMOR   IN   EUROPE 

the  change  effected  by  the  great  invention  of 
Mr.  Harvey. 

By  the  year  1896,  the  Harvey  armor-plate  had 
become  acknowledged  throughout  the  world  so 
completely  that  no  other  armor-plate  was  in  use. 

At  the  present  time  all  the  armor  makers  of 
the  world  pay  tribute  to  some  one  of  the  dif- 
ferent Harvey  Companies  for  all  the  armor 
they  manufacture,  and  the  business  has  grown 
to  be  a  very  large  and  important  one,  and  the 
armor  has  been  adopted  as  the  standard  by  all 
the  European  Governments. 

Ten  European,  three  South  American,  and 
two  Asiatic  nations  have  ships  protected  with 
Harveyed  armor,  England  leading  with  twenty- 
two  battle-ships  and  forty-five  cruisers. 

On  March  15,  1894,  the  thirty-fifth  session 
of  the  Institution  of  Naval  Architects,  Mr. 
Charles  E.  Ellis,  managing  director  of  the  firm 
of  John  Brown  &  Co.  (Limited),  read  a  paper 
entitled  "  Recent  Experiments  in  Armor." 
In  this  paper  he  makes  the  following  statement 
as  his  conclusion  : 


"  With  the  above  facts  before  us,  we  are  enabled  to 
form  some  idea  of  the  improvements  that  have  recently 

Si 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

been  effected  in  armor-plate  manufacture,  and  of  the 
relative  value  of  the  various  kinds  of  armor. 

"  Without  disregarding  the  excellent  qualities  of  steel 
and  nickel  plates  which  I  have  alluded  to  earlier  in  this 
paper,  I  think  I  have  shown  that  Harveyed  armor  would 
be  a  more  efficient  defence  to  the  vital  parts  of  any  ship 
of  war,  whether  battle-ship  or  cruiser,  than  any  other 
type  of  plate.  Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  percentage 
of  superiority  it  possesses,  but  I  do  not  think  that  I  am 
over-estimating  its  value  when  I  place  its  resisting 
power  at  fifty  per  cent,  above  the  steel  compound  plates 
of  1888  which  I  have  chosen  as  the  basis  of  comparison. 
This  advantage  can  be  used  by  the  naval  architect  in 
one  of  two  ways  :  he  can  either  clothe  with  armor  a 
greater  part  of  his  ship,  or  he  can  obtain  greater  resist- 
ance keeping  the  same  thickness  of  armor.  The  new 
development  is,  therefore,  of  the  greatest  importance, 
and  it  will  be  a  matter  of  satisfaction  to  this  institution 
that  the  British  Admiralty  have  been  the  first  naval 
authority  in  Europe  to  realize  the  value  of  this  new 
form  of  armor,  and  to  apply  it  to  their  most  recent 
designs." 


82 


I" 


«    c/5 

w    ^ 


THE   HARVEY   PROCESS 

The  process  of  "  Harveyizing"  has  produced 
such  marvellous  results  in  increasing  the  resist- 
ance of  armor-plate  to  the  enormous  penetra- 
tive strains  to  which  it  is  subjected,  that  a 
word  may  be  added  as  to  the  essential  charac- 
teristics of  the  Harvey  process  and  the  u  Har- 
veyized  "  plates,  and  their  striking  features  of 
novelty. 

Armor-plates  are  made  of  masses  of  steel  so 
large  that  ordinary  methods  of  treatment,  which 
could  be  successfully  practised  on  smaller  ar- 
ticles, seem  manifestly  to  be  impracticable. 

Steel  had  for  many  years  prior  to  Mr.  Har- 
vey's invention  been  settled  upon  as  probably 
the  only  proper  material  for  armor-plate,  espe- 
cially on  account  of  its  capacity  for  hardening 
when  chilled ;  but  rapid  chilling  of  such  large 
masses  of  steel  as  constitute  an  armor-plate 
was  universally  believed  to  be  impossible  with- 
out danger  of  cracking  the  same,  or  setting  up 
fatal  internal  strains,  if  the  carbon  contents  of 

83 


HAYWARD   AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

the  steel  were  sufficiently  high  to  produce  any 
material  hardening  effect. 

Armor-plates  of  high-carbon  steel  were,  there- 
fore,  unknown  in  practice,  and  believed  to  be 
impossible. 

Hence,  many  plates  were  made  (especially 
by  the  Continental  and  early  American  manu- 
facturers) from  steel  which  was  comparatively 
low  in  carbon,  and  these  plates  were  subjected 
to  only  mild  processes  of  chilling,  such  as  in 
oil  or  lead. 

But  such  plates  were  inadequate  in  hardness 
to  break  up  projectiles,  and  were  often  com- 
pletely perforated  in  use. 

Many  attempts  to  unite  the  characteristics 
of  a  very  hard  face  with  a  softer  back  had  been 
made  by  compounding  plates  of  different  char- 
acteristics, but  these  failed  because  of  the  ten- 
dency to  separate  at  the  joint,  if  the  two  parts 
differed  from  each  other  in  composition,  and 
the  welded  joint  was  almost  always  lacking  in 
strength  and  liable  to  fracture,  owing  to  the 
existence  of  initial  strains  due  to  uneven  shrink- 
ing of  the  different  parts. 

"  Cementation  "  had  been  vaguely  suggested 
by  several  experimenters  as  a  remedy  for  the 

84 


THE   HARVEY   PROCESS 

peculiar  difficulties  which  were  met  with  in 
armor  manufacture,  but  no  practicable  details 
had  been  given  by  anyone  prior  to  Mr.  Har- 
vey, and  the  violent  chilling  of  such  a  plate 
had  not  been  even  proposed. 

The  so-called  " case-hardening"  of  small  ob- 
jects had  also  been  known  for  centuries  as  ap- 
plicable to  articles  of  small  bulk,  but  no  proc- 
ess of  "case-hardening  "  seemed  applicable  to 
overcome  the  difficulties  encountered  in  armor 
making,  owing,  among  other  things,  to  the 
thinness  of  the  hardened  skin  or  "  case  "  which 
was  commonly  produced,  and  to  the  abrupt 
character  of  the  transition  from  the  harder 
condition  of  the  external  skin  to  the  softer 
parts  under  the  skin. 

At  this  point  in  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  armor,  when  all  expedients  seemed  fu- 
tile to  produce  the  ideal  characteristics  which 
had  long  been  suggested,  Mr.  Harvey  solved 
the  problem  by  the  conception  and  proof  that 
the  large  mass  of  an  armor-plate,  if  made  of 
homogeneous  low  steel,  could  be  deeply  im- 
pregnated with  carbon,  upon  the  impact  face 
only,  by  prolonged  subjection  of  such  face  to 
the  action  of  carbon  under  pressure,  at  a  heat, 

85 


HAYWARD  AUGUSTUS   HARVEY 

in  the  furnace  chamber,  high  enough  to  melt 
cast  iron,  and  that  the  result  of  such  high  and 
prolonged  heat  and  persistent  pressure  of  the 
carbon  on  one  face,  while  the  back  was  pro- 
tected, would  be  to  cause  such  a  gradually 
diminishing  percentage  in  the  distribution  of 
carbon  inward,  from  the  working  face,  as  to 
obviate  all  difficulties  previously  experienced 
in  tendencies  to  cracking  due  to  the  abruptness 
of  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  harder 
and  softer  parts. 

The  Harvey  process  thus,  for  the  first  time, 
made  it  possible  to  produce  an  intensely  hard 
surface  on  armor,  by  adapting  it  to  be  "  chilled  " 
in  the  most  energetic  manner — as  by  spraying 
with  cold  water — without  material  danger  of 
cracking  the  plate  or  its  "glass-hard"  face, 
and  without  producing  any  tendency  to  sepa- 
rate the  "  chill  "  from  the  soft  back.  The  re- 
markable adherence  of  the  extremely  hard  face 
of  a  "  Harveyized  "  plate  to  the  soft  body  and 
back,  and  the  efficient  yielding  or  cushioning 
effect  of  the  back  in  allowing  the  hard  face  to 
give  elastically  when  struck,  and  thus  throw 
off  and  break  up  the  projectile,  is  doubtless 
due  to  the  characteristic  of  gradually  diminish- 

86 


THE   HARVEY   PROCESS 

ing  ("  decremental ")  distribution  of  the  car- 
bon behind  or  beneath  the  intensely  hardened 
surface  layer,  which  is  technically  known  as 
the  "  chill,"  and  which  is  formed  on  one  face 
only,  so  as  to  leave  the  back  and  sides  of  the 
plate  free  to  yield. 

This  decremental  distribution  of  the  carbon 
which  occurs  both  in  and  under  the  "  chill," 
is  produced  by  the  high  and  prolonged  heat 
which  results  in  deep  carburization,  and  it 
was  this  practice  which  was  boldly  suggested 
and  successfully  practised  by  Mr.  Harvey,  con- 
trary to  the  belief  in  its  practicability  by  most, 
if  not  all,  experienced  steel  workers,  who  nat- 
urally supposed  that  such  a  treatment  would 
fatally  endanger  plates  of  such  magnitude. 


87 


APPENDIX  A 


LIST  OF  WAR-SHIPS  WITH   HARVEY  ARMOR 


GREAT  BRITAIN. 

Battle-ships  : 

Renown, 

Jupiter, 

Formidable, 

Majestic, 

Mars, 

Implacable, 

Magnificent, 

Canopus, 

Irresistible, 

Prince  George, 

Glory, 

Vengeance, 

Victorious, 

Goliath, 

London, 

Illustrious, 

Albion, 

Venerable, 

Caesar, 

Ocean, 

Bulwark. 

Hannibal, 

Cruisers,  ist  Class 

; 

Powerful, 

Spartiate, 

*Aboukir, 

Terrible, 

Diadem, 

*Cressy, 

Andromeda, 

Ariadne, 

*Hogue, 

Europa, 

Argonaut, 

*Lutley,  and 

Niobe, 

Amphitrite, 

*four  others. 

Cruisers,  2d  Class 

.• 

Talbot, 

Isis, 

Vindictive, 

Eclipse, 

Juno, 

Arrogant, 

Minerva, 

Diana, 

Hyacinth, 

*Armored  Cruisers. 

89 

APPENDIX  A 


Cruisers,  2d  class — Continued  : 
Dido,  Gladiator, 

Doris,  Furious, 

Venus, 

Cruisers,  $d  Class  : 
Pelorus,  Pandora, 

Pomone,  Pioneer, 

Proserpine,  Pactolus, 

Psyche,  Perseus, 

ARGENTINE  REPUBLIC. 
Armored  Cruisers  : 

Garibaldi,  San  Martino. 

Cruiser  : 

Buenos  Ayres. 

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 
Coast  Defence  Ships  : 

Budapest,  Monarch, 

Armored  Cruiser  : 
"  D." 

% 

BRAZIL. 

Coast  Defence  Ships  : 

Marshal  Deodoro, 

Turret  River  Boats  : 


Highflyer, 
Hermes. 


Prometheus, 

Pegasus, 

Pyramus. 


Wien. 


Marshal  Floriano. 


Maranhao. 


Pernambuco. 
90 


APPENDIX   A 

CHILI. 

Armored  Cruisers : 

Almirante  O'Higgins,  Esmeralda. 

Cruiser : 

Ministro  Tentino 

CHINA. 
Cruiser : 
Hai-Chi. 

DENMARK. 

Coast  Defence  Ships : 
Skjold,  Herluf  Tralle. 

FRANCE. 
Battle-ships  : 

Massena,  Henry  IV.,  Jena, 

Saint  Louis,          Gaulois,  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

Bouvet, 

Cruiser,  1st  Class : 
D'Entrecasteaux, 

GERMANY. 

Coast  Defence  Ships  : 

Aegir,  Hargen,  Hildebrand, 

Frithjof,  Heindall,  Odin. 

Armored  Cruiser : 
Fiirst  Bismarck. 

91 


APPENDIX  A 

Cruisers,  1st  Class : 

Kaiser  Friedrich  III.,  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II. 

Konig  Wilhelm, 

Cruisers,  2d  Class : 

Freya,  Hertha,  Vineta. 

Hansa,  Victoria  Luise, 

ITALY. 

Battle-ships  : 

Ammiraglio  di  St.  Bon,  Emanuele  Filiberto. 

Armored  Cruisers  : 

Giuseppe  Garibaldi,  Varesse, 

Vetor  Pisani,  Carlo  Alberto. 

JAPAN. 

Battle-ships  : 

Asahi,  Yashima,  Fuji. 

Shikishima,  and  one  more, 

Armored  Cruisers : 
Asama,  Kasaji, 

Takasage,       Tokiha,  and  one  more. 

NETHERLANDS. 

Coast  Defence  Ships : 
Evertsen,  Kortenaer,  Plet-Hein. 

NORWAY. 

Coast  Defence  Ships  : 

Harold  Haarfagre,  Torkenskjold. 

92 


APPENDIX  A 

RUSSIA. 

Battle-ships  : 

Oslabya,  Peresviet,  Sevastopol. 

Cruisers  : 

Poltava,  Petro  Pavloosk,  Rostislav. 

SPAIN. 
Armored  Cruisers  : 

Cristobal  Colon,.  Pedro  d'Aragon. 

UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 
First-class  Battle-ships  : 

Indiana,  Massachusetts,     Alabama, 

Iowa,  Kearsarge,  Illinois, 

Oregon,  Kentucky,  Wisconsin. 

Second-class  Battle-ships : 

Maine,  Texas. 

Armored  Cruiser  : 

Brooklyn. 
Protected  Cruiser  : 

Olympia. 
Double  Turreted  Monitors : 

Monadnock,         Puritan. 


93 


APPENDIX   B 

LIST    OF    AMERICAN    PATENTS    ISSUED    TO 
HAYWARD   A.    HARVEY 

This  list  is  not  complete  prior  to  1860. 

No.  of 
Patent.  Article.  Date. 

26492  Railroad  chair Dec.  20,  1859 

42474  Screw-blank  feeder April  26,  1864 

42475  Wood  screw April  26,  1864 

42476  Screw-blank  feeder April  26,  1864 

42477  Screw-blank  feeder April  26,  1864 

42766  Making  wood  screws  (threader).  .May  17,  1864 

42767  Making  wood  screws  (shaver) May  17,  1864 

42768  Making  wood  screws  (nicker) May  17,  1864 

44090  Heading  bolt  and  screw-blanks..  .Sept.  6,  1864 

44723  Shaving  screw-blank  heads Oct.  18,  1864 

44724  File Oct.  18,  1864 

47548  Making  wood  screws May  2,  1865 

47549  Screw-blank  feeder May  2,  1865 

51179  Screw-threading  machine. Nov.  28,  1865 

63385  Wire  staple April  2,  1867 

64976  Sash  weight May  21,  1867 

66331  Nail July  2,  1867 

66585  Wood  screw July  9,  1867 

71166  Screw  nail Nov.  19,  1867 

95 


APPENDIX   B 

No.  of 
Patent.  Article.  Date. 

72633  Wood  screw Dec.  24,  1867 

121050  Improvement  in  brushes Nov.  21,  1871 

154864  Bolts  and  nuts Sept.  8,  1874 

154865  Mode  in  forming  nicked  heads  of 

screws Sept.  8,  1874 

175087  Machines  for  making  corrugated- 
legged  staples Mar.  21,  1876 

197466  Bolt  and  nut Nov.  27,  1877 

197467  Nut  and  bolt  lock June  4,  1877 

197933  Wood  screw Dec.  1 1,  1877 

204036  Bolts  and  nuts May  21,  1878 

221729  Screw  nail Nov.  18,  1879 

223730  Machine   for    rolling   threads    of 

screws  or  bolts Jan.  20,  1880 

224591  Lock  nut Feb.  17,  1880 

240702  Machine  for  corrugating  nails April  26,  1881 

248163  Feeding  mechanism  for  machines 

for  rolling  screw-threads Oct.  1 1,  1881 

248165  Machine  for  rolling  screw-threads. Oct.  n,  1881 

248166  Apparatus    for    feeding    blanks 

to  machines  for  rolling  screw- 
threads Oct.  n,  1881 

248167  Process  for  threading  screws Oct.  n,  1881 

248168  Manufacturing  screws  and  screw- 

bolts Oct.  n,  1881 

248169  Manufacture  of  screws Oct.  n,  1881 

250728  Tap  and  die Dec.  13,  1881 

251874  Machine    for   rolling   threads   of 

screws  or  bolts Jan.  3,  1882 

251875  Machine  for  tapping  nuts Jan.  3,  1882 

96 


APPENDIX   B 

No.  of 
Patent.  Article.  Date. 

272877  Automatic  nut-tapping  machine.  .Feb.  27,  1883 

27373*  Nut  and  bolt Mar.  13,  1883 

274492  Tap  for  cutting  spiral  wedge  nuts. Mar.  27,  1883 

284633  Machine    for   rolling    threads   of 

wood  screws Sept.  1 1,  1883 

288798  Screw Nov.  20.  1883 

319247  Rolled  wood  screw June  2,  1885 

321214  Gimlet-pointed  rolled  wood  screw.  June  30,  1885 

327261  Screw  tap Sept.  29,  1885 

327263  Screw  tap Sept.  29,  1885 

328217  Machine  for  rolling  screw-threads. Oct.  13,  1885 

329737  Screw  swaging  machine Nov.  3,  1885 

329738  Spring  washer Nov.  3,  1885 

329900  Method    of   making   rolled  wood 

screws Nov.  10,  1885 

340308  Nut  lock April  20,  1886 

357001  Machine  for  rolling  screws Feb.  i,  1887 

357002  Machine  for  rolling  screws Feb.  i,  1887 

376194  Process  of  treating  low  steel Jan.  10,  1888 

377452  Wire  screw  nail Feb.  7,  1888 

377453  Rolled   headed  wood   screw   and 

process  of  making  the  same Feb.  7,  1888 

379393  Machine  for  making  washers Mar.  13, 1888 

383949  Screw  swaging  machine June  5,  1888 

385621  Wide-range  yielding  washer July  3>  1888 

395899  Railroad  spike Jan.  8,  1889 

420557  Machine  for  making  spiral  wash- 
ers  Feb.  4,  1890 

440631  Resilient  spiral  washer Nov.  18,  1890 

456723  Rolled  spike July  28,  1891 

97 


APPENDIX   B 

No.  of 
Patent.  Article.  Date. 

460268  Decrementally    hardened    armor- 

plate  Sept.  29,  1891 

460269  Gun Sept.  29,  1891 

464301  Resilient  spiral  washer  and  mak- 
ing of  the  same Dec.  i,  1891 

498390  Composition  for  supercarburizing 

steel May  30,  1893 

506689  Manufacture  of  steel  rails  for  rail- 
roads  Oct.  17,  1893 


AMERICAN  PATENTS  ISSUED  TO  MR.  HARVEY  IN 
CONJUNCTION  WITH  OTHER  INVENTORS. 

128251  Machinery   for   making    brushes, 

with  C.  D.   Rogers,  and  M.  P. 

Wilkins June  25,  1872 

306132  Machine  for  rolling  screw-threads, 

with  C.  S.  Clark Oct.  7,  1884 

314935  Screw-pointing  machine,  with  C. 

S.  Clark Mar.  31,  1885 

314936  Machine  for  nicking  screw-blanks, 

with  C.  S.  Clark Mar.  31,  1885 

327262  Steel  die,  with  C.  S.  Clark Sept.  29,  1885 

348967  Multiple  screw-shaving  machine, 

with  C.  S.  Clark Sept.  14,  1886 


98 


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Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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JUL   6  1961 

REC'D  LD 

JUL    fi  1961 

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